AvP
by Furitaurus
Summary: Macalania; once a beautiful land of mystic forests and savage glaciers. With the loss of the fayth it has degenerated, melted and exposed to Spira a long hidden, deadly secret that draws in visitors from beyond Spira. Now everyone will scream. COMPLETE.
1. The Approaching Storm

**AvP**

_Okay here's the deal with this story. It is set after final fantasy X-2 and as the title suggests it is a crossover with the Alien Xenomorph, the Predator and the characters from FFX-2. Timeline wise I would say about a year after the events of FFX-2._

**Chapter 1**

**The Approaching Storm**

The falling darkness of the evening slowly swallows up the vast open plain that was once the glittery and mysterious Macalania woods. The woods have long been dead after the loss of Shiva's fayth in the Macalania temple and now there is nothing left, the land resembles the Thunder Plains more than any other part of Spira.

The Spiran people, not wanting to allow the land to go to waste, have started to build there and start a new city. Construction workers mill about, digging up the ground, constructing large metallic looking structures and operate machinery. A number of buildings have already been finished, though they did not exactly look very friendly or glamorous.

A hovercraft travels over an area that has not yet been built on; it closes in on an area where there are only a couple of workers, who have been digging out and levelling an area about half the size of a football field. But for now they have stopped work.

The hovers two occupants; a man and a woman, talk to each other as the man drives. The woman is a sophisticated looking red head wearing thin black rimmed glasses on a petit nose and she looks to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her hazel eye's dart infrequently from the view outside to her companion on her right and back again.

Her companion is a middle aged man whose hair colour is starting to catch up with him thanks to the few strands of grey hair that stand out from the rest of his black hair. He does not however cut the rough and tough look of a construction worker; he looked more like a surveyor or inspector.

The woman supports her head with her arm, which rests against the door to the hover, she has a look of boredom about her, whatever reason they have for coming out to the diggers she did not care much for it.

"Do we have any idea what it is that they have found over here?" she says with a sigh.

The man shrugs apathetically, "We know zip except the idiots think that they have managed to open up some sort of void, but once they opened it enough for someone to walk into, they stopped digging. They said they wanted someone to investigate first before they continued, and as luck would have it, you and I are the only ones qualified to go searching in uncharted areas."

The woman makes a rasping noise with her lips, obviously as disinterested in why they were going as her partner was.

"This sucks," she mutters.

The man rolls his eyes, "No shit."

The hover pulls up next to a group of excavators who look impatiently at the machine. The driver and passenger jump out, open up the hovers cargo hold and pull out various pieces of equipment; torches, safety harnesses, ropes and flares.

A burly looking construction worker walks up to them both, arms crossed, "You two the experts around here?"

The woman steps towards him to shake his hand, which he grudgingly takes, "My name is Elsa, and this is my colleague John. So come on start talking, what happened here?"

Another construction worker, hands in pockets and chewing on something calls out to answer her, "We were digging over there," he points to a large hole in the side of the ground, "and our machinery went straight into that, we then opened it up as much as it would allow us and bob's your uncle we've got ourselves a cave of some sort."

John glances over at the black opening as he fiddles with some ropes, "How's it look inside?"

The first worker to have spoken to them speaks up, "That is one of the stranger aspects of it, the walls as far as we can tell are not soil like should be; they're made of some sort of weird stone, in fact it looks like this thing was built by someone, but when it was built, we can't say. Apart from what we can see outside there's nothing more we can tell you. We don't really want to go in without proper lighting equipment."

John nods, acknowledging the statement, "Okay that's fine, we'll get to work as quickly as possible, I hear there is a large storm heading our way from the thunder plains, and I don't want to be out here for that."

The pair assembles their equipment; they attach one end of the rope to a large digger and tie the other end to the John's safety harness. He has a radio attached to his right shoulder and a lamp on his left shoulder. As they move to the entrance of the cave he packs flares into one of his pockets.

John inhales deeply and looks at the cave, then back at the workers and Elsa, "Alright here is what happens; I will be in constant radio contact. If for any reason I stop talking for long periods then tug three times on the rope, if I don't tug three times back then get help, do not play the hero and come in after me, for all you know I may have just knocked my transmitter, but, I might also have fallen down a big hole or something. Got that?" Elsa nods.

"If I don't tug back then pull the rope back to here using the machine, even if it means you will drag me on my arse kicking and screaming."

Elsa smiles at him, "Gotcha!"

He looks over at the hover that they came in and points to it "Oh, there's a gun in the little compartment in front of the passengers seat, can you get it? I may need it, who knows what I'll find in here."

Elsa jogs over to the hover, reaches inside and fumbles about for the gun. She brings her arm out, holding the pistol and walks over to John. He takes the gun and puts it in his safety harness at his right side.

John looks at the cave and switches on his lamp, the directional beam glows ahead of him, angled towards the floor, the circular beam illuminates the floor about seven meters in front of him.

He walks into the cave, turning his shoulders so that the light 'scans' the floor ahead of him.

Elsa's voice buzzes in on his walkie talkie, "You hearing me?"

"Loud and clear," he says, looking around himself.

"Start talking to me John," she ordered.

He clears his throat before speaking, "Okay well there isn't much to say, it's just a cave like any other, strange pattern and colouring though, it's sort of a green black colour. The ceiling seems to be covered with, what I can only describe as icicles, but they can't be icicles as it's very warm in here. I can't see any signs of fiends, guess even they can't live in a cave when there is no food around."

"Oh really, and what does that make you then?" she replies sarcastically.

John gives a small snicker, "I'm the waiter. Hmmm. Cave seems to be getting a little smaller. Its really humid in here, the air is so damp. Okay I've just reached an intersection I see two tunnels in front of me. I'll take the left one."

John's voice electrically drones in Elsa's walkie talkie, "This is kind of weird, the cave has certainly changed its look, the walls are still that green black colour but there is more of a pattern to it this time."

Elsa looks at the walkie talkie with curiosity, "How do you mean?"

"Well for starters there are no more of those icicle things anymore, but it now looks like I'm walking down a large rib cage. Right above me following all the way down the path on the ceiling is a large pipe-like mass of who knows what, if it looks like anything I'd say it looked like a huge spinal column, and the 'ribs' run down the sides at constant frequent intervals, as if it were moulded into that shape."

Elsa raises an eyebrow, "Weird"

John exhales slowly into his walkie talkie before speaking, "You got that right. Hey hold up a second, there seems to be some sort of opening in the wall here."

John gets down onto his knees and looks at the small, fist sized hole. He takes a small hammer from his belt and starts knocking at the hole in the left side of the wall, gradually making it bigger and stops once he can put his head through it.

"Whoa!" is all Elsa and the construction workers hear on their end.

"What, what is it?" asks Elsa, her voice showing a hint of panic.

John's head is sticking out of the wall and looking around at an enormous room, truly massive. A strange eerie light glows in the room allowing him to see a fair distance around himself.

He turns to his walkie, "This hole in the cave has led me to another room and my god this is one big room, I don't need the torch, the walls have this strange, faint glow coming off them, it's not that bright but I can see quite a lot."

"The floor is about forty feet below me, and I can see some sort of strange blue light covering the bottom, there are other things too, I can't make out what they are but there are a lot of them, covering the floor."

He exhales sharply, "This room is huge. It must be about the volume of a blitz ball sphere only it's a different shape, more like a square with rounded edges. I must be about fifty feet or so above the floor. The walls have that 'rib' look about them as well. only on a larger scale. I'm gonna go down. I've got to check what's down here okay?"

"I'd rather you didn't," Elsa responds firmly.

John responds with a reassuring voice, "Come on I can't see a single fiend here, I'll be fine, time to do a little abseiling."

"You better be careful John," she warns.

"I will don't worry. I've abseiled loads of time before," he tries to reassure her.

Having bashed out enough of the wall to get his whole body through, John begins to abseil down the side of the wall. He reaches the bottom with the dull thud of his boots. There is a rim of raised ground that circles the entire room; the ground a couple of meters in front of him is lowered by almost a meter.

The lower part of the ground has a white mist covering the strange objects underneath, and a blue light shines millimetres over the mist, and looks like a laser only it covers the entire area and there is no visible source for the light.

John looks around himself checking for fiends but sees none, "Okay I'm at the bottom. There is a small rim of raised ground that circles the entire area; the rest is about three feet lower. The lowered area has this strange mist covering it, I can also make out the blue light, and it looks laser-like, covering the whole of the lowered area. What's weird is that I can see no immediate source of the light; I guess it must be something to do with the walls and the mist."

"Anything else?" buzzes Elsa.

"Yeah, I can see these objects better now; there are a lot of them. They look sort of egg like. They have similar colour to the walls actually, I'm going to take a closer look."

John steps down slowly into the mist, which had been undisturbed until then. His feet also break up the mysterious light. Having touched the lowered floor he moves in closer to the nearest 'egg'.

"Ok I'm looking at one of these weird objects. Its egg shaped, that's really all I can tell you. The top of it looks like it can be split into quarters. The bottom is slightly translucent, it's got a yellowish green glow and… hey, I can see something moving inside, almost twitching."

"John watch it I don't like the sound of this."

John does not take heed of Elsa's warning and does not back away. A strange sound like two slimy surfaces rubbing together began to emit from the top of the object, which draws John's attention away from the bottom.

The four 'quarters' split apart slowly and fold upwards and outwards, like a flower awakening in spring, exposing a fleshy pink and white substance that pulses in random places.

"Hey whoa, whoa, the top of the egg has opened up into quarters. There is definitely something in this but I don't know what."

"John get out of there we have no idea what that thing is."

John ignores the command and keeps watching the egg. Eight spindly legs suddenly start to crawl above the opening of it.

Elsa listens closely to John's commentary, his electronic voice sounding out for her and the workers to hear, "Hey what the hell is…" he is cut short by an inhuman screech and John's muffled shout sounds out from the walkie talkie.

"JOHN!" Elsa screams, panic rushing over her in a wave. All that she can hear from John are his muffled screams which are slowly becoming quieter, "MMMMMMMPH! MMPH! Mmmmph! Mmph! Mmmph Mm…" Then silence.

Elsa is shaking rapidly, her eyes darting all over the place, the talkie held close to her ear and mouth as she calls out to him "John? John! JOHN!" but he does not respond, only a faint electronic crackling greets her calls.

"That's it, I'm going to get him out of there, we can't drag him out; he's in a lowered position and if we tried to pull him out from here his rope will drag on the edge of where he went down, if we try to pull him up we could break his back. You guys listen; here is a third walkie-talkie, when I tell you to, you slowly reverse that machine away from the cave so it drags him up, and I will be there to make sure he doesn't get caught where the rope comes over the edge, which could kill him okay?"

One of the workers jumps into the bulldozer-like machine and starts it up. The other one takes the walkie talkie and looks back at Elsa who is packing herself some flares, "Right we'll be waiting for your signal, watch yourself in there."

Elsa nods once then jogs to the hover where she gets a second set of equipment, attaches herself to the rope and walks into the cave.

She ignites flares every ten feet or so illuminating her path way. She travels down the left branch following John's rope, and stops when she reaches the hole that he has made. She pokes her head in and looks down at John who is lying still.

She takes her walkie talkie, "Okay guys wheel him up until I say stop."

The rope starts to move and John is dragged up, she could see something was attached to his face, a creature with eight legs holding onto the top of his head and she could make out its tail wrapped around his neck, it resembles some sort of spider. On its body are two sacks that slowly rise and deflate like a pair of lungs.

"Oh my God," she says under her breath, quivering slightly. John reaches the edge of the mouth. "Okay guys stop," she grabs hold of him and hauls him out, she checked his wrist. "_He's still got a strong pulse," _she thinks to herself.

She tries to remove the creature's legs, but notices the tail tighten round his neck and stops trying, "Whoa, okay fine, don't touch it."

She speaks into her walkie talkie again, "Guys start wheeling him out!"

At the entrance of the cave Elsa walks out of the darkness, bent over and arms out stretched supporting John's head as he is dragged out. She signals the workers to stop pulling.

They walk up to her and take a horrified look at John, "Damn! What the hell is that thing?" asks the burly worker.

Elsa slowly shakes her head, "I don't know but do not touch it. John is alive but I touched it and it tightened its tail thing around his neck. Now help me get him to the hover, he needs to get back to the hospital."

The three haul him into the hover, place him into a seat and strap him firmly in.

Elsa climbs into the driving seat and looks over at the workers, "Okay you guys better come back with me, that storm is coming in pretty fast now, besides I don't want you going anywhere near that cave."

The workers do not hesitate to jump in and strap themselves into the other seats behind her. She revs up the engine, the propeller of the hover coming to life, slowly propelling them forwards. She steers to the main facility and to the hospital, and the vehicle accelerates towards the new city as the ominous dark clouds move in over head, bringing the storm with them.


	2. Disturbing Reports

_This is the edited version of the first chapter two and i feel it is much better than it was before on a technical level. I havn't really made many changes to the actual story._

**Chapter 2**

**Disturbing reports**

Out in the vastness of space looking down upon a peaceful looking Spira a space ship appears out of nowhere, as if it had been cloaked in darkness, the light shimmers around it for a few brief moments. The large ship closes in on the sleepy planet and slowly alters its trajectory so that it flies parallel with Spira's rotation.

A set of five flashes beat out from the side of the ship and five large, black, rocket shaped objects fly out of the ship down towards the globe. They enter the atmosphere and trails of fire light up behind them from the heat of re-entry.

Evening has come to Besaid Island, the sky is clear and stars litter the sky. Outside Wakka and Lulu's house, Yuna, Tidus, Rikku, Paine and Vidina, in Yuna's arms, stare up at them.

Rikku points up at the sky smiling, "Hey look! Shooting stars, five of them! All at once! Cool!"

Yuna gasps at the falling lights in the sky, "You're right; hey that's one for each of us. Make a wish everyone!"

Paine makes a small huffing noise and looks questioningly at Yuna, "You believe it will happen?"

Yuna shrugs, "Not really but its something to do."

Tidus flicks Paine on the shoulder, "Besides what have you got to loose? Who knows, maybe it could happen."

Paine gives a small chuckle, "Very well then," she closed her eyes and opens them again.

"What'd you wish for?" asks Rikku.

Paine shakes her finger at her, "If I tell you then it certainly won't come true; you're meant to keep it to yourself."

Rikku pouts and sits back, by now the shooting stars have disappeared.

Tidus yawns and stretches out his arms, "Right I'm tired, I'm going to bed," he gets up and dusts off the dirt on his trousers.

Yuna holds up her hand to him, "I second that," she is hoisted onto her feet with Vidina in her other arm.

Rikku clumsily gets to her feet and brushes the dust off her miniskirt, "Well if you're going I might as well too."

Paine says nothing but gets up with the rest of them. They all walk into the house for a decent night's sleep, blissfully unaware of the incoming danger heralded by the fire balls in the sky.

Night time passes uneventfully over the small Island; its inhabitants slumber without interruption. As morning comes the sun shines resplendently over the little Island. It's golden glow rising above the liquid sapphire sea.

Tidus wanders sleepily out of the tent followed by Yuna, Paine and Rikku. Barely giving them a moment to take in the morning, a rather official looking man runs hurriedly up to them. "High Summoner Yuna?" he asks.

"Yes?" replies Yuna turning to the man.

"My name is Monterro I have a message for you from Nooj, Gippal and Baralai, it is of the utmost urgency. Spira has gone into turmoil overnight! People in Luca, Bevelle and Djose have been slaughtered most horribly at almost exactly the same time and in exactly the same fashion."

Yuna puts her fingers to her lips, "Oh my god that's terrible! But why am I needed?"

Paine rolls her eyes, knowing what the response would be, "Here it comes."

Monterro shrugs, "They did not say exactly why, though I have a feeling given your past efforts in saving Spira they would like you to help them find out those responsible."

"Figures," mutters Rikku.

Tidus steps towards him, a concerned look on his face, "You said they were murdered horribly right? How horrible is 'horrible'?"

Monterro looks away from them; the mere thought of what happened to the victims makes him uneasy. He takes a deep breath and looks back at Tidus, "They were found in groups in each area, the victims I mean. Some had been hung upside down with rope and… skinned, completely."

"Oh, my…" whispers Yuna in shock.

"Dare I ask about the others?" asks Rikku, slight dread entering her voice.

"The rest of them… had their heads and spinal columns removed and the bodies dumped next to the skinned ones."

The faces of the four friends were quite a picture; their eyes wide and their mouths agape.

Paine begins moving her head from side to side, "This sounds like the doing of a highly coordinated and psychotic group of people. We don't deal with people, we deal with fiends."

Tidus rubs his forehead in thought, "I don't like the sound of this either, but we should do something; it's the right thing to do."

Rikku glances at Tidus and smiles, "Ever the do-gooder huh Tidus? However I agree with you. I mean if they attacked those places, who's to say they won't attack here? Attack the people we care for?"

"Paine I'm afraid I agree with these two, we can't risk our friends here getting hurt. Besides, the people of Spira will want to know that we are working on this, they'll calm down then."

Paine pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs at the prospect of what could lie ahead. For a few moments she says nothing, she merely holds the pose. Eventually she releases her nose and slaps her thigh, "Very well then count me in. Guess we'd better get the Celsius fired up."

Rikku walks back to the house, "I'll call Buddy."

The Celsius lands in a hangar in the City of Bevelle, Nooj, Gippal and Baralai stand in front of a door leading from the hangar and they watch the ship land. The ramp from the ship descends allowing them to see Spira's favourite saviours. They all step down and the three men walk towards the four.

Nooj bows his head to them "Good to see you got our message everyone, not to put too fine a point on things but I think Spira needs you again."

"People are panicking all over the place. In one night Spira has gone into pandemonium again," says Baralai.

Gippal for once says nothing, merely nods his head in acknowledgment at the four. His expression is unusually downbeat, as if something bad has happened to him.

"Come on you three tell us everything you know about what has happened," orders Paine, cutting right to the chase.

"Okay, you know about what happened to the people in Bevelle, Luca and Djose right?" asks Nooj, looking at them for confirmation.

"Uh huh," they reply in unison.

Gippal steps towards them, his expression unchanged, "Well here are the details. The first group of people to be attacked were by most accounts in Luca; a group of four soldiers were on patrol near the Mi'hen Highroad. They were picked off one by one; we had several witness accounts from two women nearby and a group of three teenagers."

"All of them said they saw what they believed to be their assailant, but what doesn't make sense is what it looked like; they said it had no features, except the air around it seemed to shimmer as it moved, they said it was essentially invisible, save for the shimmering effect."

"We asked what weapons the attacker was using but they said they didn't see anything specific. Apparently the first guard was shot with something; the doctors found two holes in his… skinless head. The three kids said they saw a white and blue ball shoot out at one of the guards, explode, and take him down, in the confusion a second ball shot out and kill the third one."

"One of the women was standing relatively close to one of the guards and said that whatever it was that had shot the other guards ran at the last one and that she thought she saw a pair of jagged blades coming out of what she guessed was its right arm, then it stabbed the last guard with them."

"At that point in the whole foray the witnesses all went into hiding. They were found them in their homes and they were absolutely terrified."

Gippal steps away from them, he looked worse for wear, Baralai continues for him, "The guards bodies were… well two of them had been hung upside down and skinned, and the other two had their heads and spinal columns removed. For what reason we don't know, it sounds as though whoever did this wanted some form of trophy from each of them, pretty sick stuff really."

"We didn't see the bodies but the doctors say they have no idea what killed the second and third soldiers. They both have gaping holes in their chests, you can see all the way through them, but more than that, the flesh was all fused and cauterised, they said they had never seen anything like it."

"What about Bevelle and Djose?" asks Paine.

Nooj answers, "Similar thing. A group of five guards were found, two of them were skinned and the others were… well you can guess. Some witnesses saw it at different points. Three people saw what happened, two monks and a nun. The first monk was talking to the guards as the person attacked. He said he heard a sound like a whip cracking, and then one of the guard's chests exploded. They looked around and a second guard got shot in the same way and at that point they all ran away and the guards were shooting in all directions, they couldn't see their attacker. Whoever it was they followed them. They passed a nun who watched one of the guards get caught in some sort of net and he fell to the floor, she tried to help him out but the wires were razor sharp and she cut herself badly, and as for the guard, she said he was getting cut to ribbons in the net, neither he or she couldn't do anything. The nun watched as something ran by her but she said it was translucent, the only indication that something was there was the air that shimmered around it."

"You seeing a pattern here?" asks Baralai, looking at the friends, "It then took the other two guards down, with some sort of sharp spear, according to the other monk who was nearby at the time. Then it returned to the guard and, without remorse, stood over him and stabbed him with 'blades that came out of its arms' and then cut off the wires and grabbed onto the guards leg. But before it walked away it supposedly looked at the nun and she saw something on what she could make out to be its head. Apparently it flashed its 'huge yellow eyes at her' and then walked off, collected the other bodies and proceeded to do to the guards what the other one did to the guards in Luca."

"The same thing happened at the very same time over on the other side of Bevelle. A group of 7 guards, all systematically butchered in front of a few witnesses in much the same way, balls of light, bladed objects, skinning and decapitation. Again all of the witnesses say they saw the air shimmer around a translucent assailant."

Gippal huffs, "The Machine Faction's base was also attacked, we lost 6 Al Bhed guards and four active machine weapons. All of the guards were attacked and killed the same way as the others except one of them was killed, according to one off the witnesses, with 'a disk like object' that travelled straight through one of the guards… cutting him in half. And returned to the thing that threw it. And once again they were treated like the others."

A tear came to Gippal's eye and he started sobbing. The others look at him quizzically and concerned, "Gippal, you okay, what's wrong?" asks Paine.

Gippal tries to calm himself, wiping his eye, "The one who got cut in half was on of my old friends."

Paine didn't know what to say to him, except the obvious, "I… I'm sorry Gippal," she puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry about me. We got a job to do."

Tidus looks at Nooj, "Okay so these creatures are translucent, therefore very difficult to see right?"

"Correct."

"And they only attack you if you are armed right?"

"It seems that way."

"So then if we are to stop them, and this probably means we will have to kill them, first of all how are we meant to see them, and secondly how are we meant to kill them if we are best to do the job unarmed?"

"We put this to the machine faction's scientists they said that they may have a solution but it won't be ready for a few days yet. Our most recent update on what they have been working on is an interesting device which will, once made, track the movement of objects. A motion tracker if you will."

Yuna folds her arms, "What do you mean a few days? We need these things now. What do we do between now and the time we get the motion trackers? Wait for these things to strike again? Next time it might not be armed people they hit."

Gippal scratches the back of his head in thought, "Well there isn't anything we can do, except hope that they don't strike again, sorry."

Yuna looks away from him in a huff, frustrated that she of all the people in Spira could do nothing.

"I'll do what I can to tell the guys to speed up their work, but we can't have faulty equipment through rushed work. In the meantime… well, I guess we better start praying."

Three uneventful days of waiting for news of the trackers pass. It seems as if the wishes of the group have been answered as there are no new reports of gruesome massacres.

Yuna, Tidus, Rikku and Paine sit in Baralai's office, waiting for the latest progress reports on the motion tracker. Yuna gets up and starts to pace about, her patients wearing thin. A clicking noise sounds from the door handle and Gippal, brandishing a smile walks in.

"Have they finished yet?" asks Paine.

"Yup, they've finished and if you follow me I will be able to show you what this puppy is capable of," he motions for them to follow him and they obey.

Gippal leads them outside of the building where they find Baralai waiting for them. In his had is a small boxy looking device about twice the size of a fist. Gippal steps towards him and he hands over the device.

"Ok guys this is the motion tracker you've been waiting for. I've played around with it a little with Baralai and it is quite impressive what this thing can do so listen up. It can detect motion in a one hundred and eighty degree arc in front of it and up to thirty metres away."

One of the six sides of the device has a bluish screen with a blue bar at the bottom and a counter that reads 00m. It has three white lines coming away from the centre of the blue bar.

"It's turned off at the moment but when activated it works like selective sonar, it only tracks living things. Now lets show you what it can do, Baralai get behind us for the moment" Baralai moves in next to the group and stands so that he is not within the sensory arc.

Gippal turns it on and a semi circular line quickly and repeatedly darts out from the centre of the blue bar and covers the area on the screen and making tiny pipping noises.

Gippal takes a glance at everyone to make sure they are paying attention.

"Notice that the line moves out? If there was something in the way it would make a bleeping noise, the closer it is the higher pitched the bleep. Let me demonstrate. Baralai move over there."

Baralai moves over about 5 metres in front of the tracker and the line sweeps over the little screen and makes a relatively high pitched bleeping noise and a small white dot appears on the screen, it quickly begins to fade and each time the line goes over the screen again the white dot is re-enhanced.

"Okay move around a little please," Baralai complies and they watched as the white line darts about the screen following Baralai's position.

Rikku looks impressed "That is a pretty nifty device. We're sure to find those things now!"

Gippal shakes his free index finger at her, "Three things you should bear in mind: The tracker does not distinguish whether an object is above or below you it only distinguishes on a horizontal axis not a vertical one, so if the dot is directly in front of you and you can't see a thing, then it is probably above or below you. Secondly it won't detect people or things that are standing perfectly still, if you saw a dot and it disappears, likelihood is it has stopped moving. Thirdly, remember that it only looks at a radius of 30 metres it's not unlimited."

"It will have to do. But I can see another problem with this. We don't know where to start. Whoever they are they will be a long way from where they were, and we can't see them from a long range can we? They are difficult enough to see close up. So where do we start?" Asks Yuna pensively.

Gippal shakes his head, "I don't know. There haven't been any more reports of attacks so they might well be trying to regroup. Let's go to the meeting room, save us standing around here. Nooj will be waiting for us there anyway."

The group enter a conference room with a large rectangular table and a number of chairs, where they find Nooj already sitting down waiting for them; he motions for them all to take a chair. Everyone sits as close to him as possible.

Baralai looks at everyone seeking their attention "Now like Tidus said, where do we start? I think we would be best to assign ourselves to teams and each team goes around with a motion tracker to Luca, Bevelle and Djose. Those were the last known locations of the attackers; we must clear out those areas first to make sure they didn't hang around in the cities."

Gippal shakes his head, "That's almost a good idea but firstly we only have two available trackers, the one I have shown these guys and the other one is in the hands of our 'soldiers' secondly Luca and Bevelle are huge cities and Djose is in the countryside, where it's easy to loose a person, let alone an invisible creature. It would be like looking for needles in haystacks."

"Well it's still a plan. Besides I don't want to have to wait any longer for another load of people get killed. We had better move and move fast." inputs Nooj.

At that moment a woman walks into the room with a rather distressed look on her face, in her hand she holds a commsphere.

"Everyone, this is something I think you all need to hear. We have lost contact with the construction workers at the new Macalania City; we would have put it down to the storm that is over them if it was not for the last transmission we received from them, just a few moments ago. I have a recording here."

She puts the commsphere down on the table and plays it, there is no picture, only static, but there are noises; someone breathing fast and shakily could be heard. A mans voice sounds out from the sphere, as he speaks there is nothing but terror in his voice.

"Th… Th… this is base leader Tao to Bevelle, come in Bevelle!"

The woman's voice responds to the man, "This is Bevelle here. What's wrong?"

Man proceeds to spout out to her, "We are under attack from unknown enemy forces; they've taken everyone, there are none left. I'm the last one; I need you to seal off the whole of Macalania. They must not escape!"

"Not let who escape?"

"The creatures that took everyone! They are not fiends I repeat they are not fiends, I've never seen anything like them but they can't be allowed to escape. The whole of Spira is in danger. You must…"

His voice trails off but his breathing can still be heard. There is a slight hissing noise then the man screams.

"AAAAHHHH HELP ME IT'S GONNA KILL ME! NO, NO, NO!"

The group hear a sickening crunching noise and hear the man gargle, then nothing.

The others look at the recorder in silence, all of them eyes wide.

Nooj breaks the silence, "Right, it looks like our killers have moved onto Macalania, damn it! There were a lot of colonists over there, men, women... children, if they have killed all of them..." he doesn't finish his sentence, merely looks at the table in dismay and the uncomfortable silence descends on the room again.

Yuna taps on the table a few times to break the silence, trying to be as objective as possible, "How are we going to stop them by ourselves? From all accounts it sounds like there are five of these things, and I don't think the four of us alone are going to be able to deal with them, with or without the trackers."

The others nod their agreement.

Baralai looks over at Gippal and then at Nooj, they nod for some reason, as if they knew what he was going to say, "I know who we can use to help us. Shortly after you guys defeated Shuyin and destroyed Vegnagun the three of us commissioned the creation of an elite fighting unit that was designed to fight for the unity of Spira when needed, sort of reminiscent of the Crimson squad, only we changed the name. We called them the U.S.C.M."

"It stands for United Spiran Colonial Marines. It has combined the best troops that the Youth League, New Yevon and the Machine Faction could offer. We have given them the latest state of the art weapons and equipment, including one of our new motion trackers, they are based here in Bevelle, and they are ready to go at a moments notice."

"We formed them to maintain control of Spira where necessary. Most of the time their work involves going to areas where the fiend concentration has become very high and they clean the place up."

Gippal continues for Baralai, "The squad is lead by a Lieutenant, who communicates to them in a mobile comm. centre, which is usually in one of our latest additions to our equipment: the armoured personnel carrier or APC for short. The rest of the division consists of two groups totalling 12 men and women. Each Group is led into combat by a Sergeant and is backed up by two Corporals. The remaining eight are then divided according to their weapons: There are six riflemen, two gunners', two flame throwers, a medic and a sniper."

"The division we have ready are the best of the best, they have never known defeat. Their skills with guns are unmatched and they are excellent in unarmed combat."

Paine looks at the three leaders, confused, "I don't get it; you have these 'Elite fighting units' at your disposal, why do you need us?"

Nooj fields the question for her, "Two reasons: Firstly if everyone in Spira knows that you guys are on the case then they will calm down, remember you have all taken on some pretty hefty tasks to save Spira in the past, especially Yuna and Rikku who defeated Sin and then went on to destroy Shuyin and Vegnagun, and the point is everyone remembers you for your respective endeavours. And secondly above all this, even after the things you have been through, you are still alive; your abilities to survive are unrivalled in Spira even by the U.S.C.M. We have faith in you guys."

"Gee thanks a lot."

"Don't be like that. We know you guys will be able to deal with this. Anyway we need to get into contact with division four's Lieutenant."

Gippal, Nooj and Baralai got up and left the room along with the woman who had brought the message.

Rikku watches them leave, looking a little pissed off at them for landing them with this obviously dangerous task, "is it really so important for us to be on this? I mean these guys sound well equipped and trained for the job, what is the point in us being here?"

"Weren't you listening to what Nooj says? As much as I hate to say it he does have a point," concedes Paine.

"Yeah besides if we do manage to capture or kill the perpetrators of this, then kudos to us. Besides I want to see this 'Elite fighting unit' of theirs. And have a look at their weapons too," plucks up Tidus.

Paine rolls her eyes, "Typical."

Yuna looks a little moody at the prospect, "I don't like it at all; I certainly don't want to end up like those men. But I feel like I must do it. For Spira and those I care about these things must be stopped."

"Ugh why can't Spira stay out of danger? I mean I feel like we're the cleaners 'we just cleaned up this mess, could you keep it clean, for ten minutes!'" pouts an indignant Rikku.

Tidus holds his hands behind his head and leans back in the chair, "Well, it's just another day at work guys, life isn't a bed of rose petals, we know that more than most people do, this is just another one of those things that we need to deal with."

Paine almost scoff at the remark, "Wow, impressive little speech there Tidus, you should introduce us to your writer." Tidus gives Paine a sarcastic smile which she ignores, "Well, I guess it would be interesting to find out who or what these psycho's are."

Tidus gets out of his chair, "So we're all in then yeah?"

Yuna, Paine and Rikku get up from their seats each heaving a sigh as if the weight of the world is on their shoulders and speak unanimously, "Yup."

Tidus gives a sneaky grin, "Lets blitz."


	3. Old Friends and New Rivals

**Chapter 3**

**Old Friends and New rivals**

The four friends, with Nooj, Gippal and Baralai ahead of them, enter a room roughly twenty meters long by eight meters wide. Tall metal lockers line the left and right walls and at the far end a few tables which, for now, have bags, clothes and other equipment. People wander about in the room and each one of them looks like a part of some sort of military outfit. They walk about, doing exercises and looking into their lockers.

Nooj claps his hands sharply together once and everyone looks over at him.

"Can I have your attention everyone? This is important so listen up because I'm only going to be saying this once."

Everyone stops talking and turns towards the group and eye up Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Tidus suspiciously.

"Something major has just happened over at the new Macalania City. You have all heard the reports of people across Spira being murdered; well it looks like they have all 'migrated'; we received a transmission from Macalania and it sounded like they were wreaking havoc there."

One of the soldiers puts up his hand, Nooj acknowledges him, "So is this going to be a stand up fight then sir and not a bug hunt?"

Nooj nods, "That's correct, the perpetrators, despite their unusual characteristics and attack methods did have a humanoid shape to them, though they are described as being 'very big people' we're talking at least a height of 7 feet for all of them."

The soldiers shifted uneasily and threw each other questioning glances, but Nooj continues, "Now this is the important part, you will be having a few additional people going out with you on this mission, now I know that you haven't been completely briefed yet so if I can finish introducing you to the temporary members of the group we can get to that quickly. Now there will be four people joining you and you will almost definitely have heard of them so this should be quick. This is High Summoner Yuna, and her friends Rikku, Paine and Tidus."

The four of them nodded their hellos to the rather intimidating group, who looked less than impressed, though a few of the men were staring in Rikku's direction for obvious reasons.

Two familiar female faces move out from behind two of the larger men into the view of the four friends. Both women speak unanimously and with great joy, "Lady Yuna!"

Yuna instantly recognises them and a huge smile forms on her face, "Lucil! Elma! Wow, it's been so long! How are you guys?"

Yuna walks up to them and hugs Lucil who is a step ahead of Elma, "We've been good Yuna. Being part of this group is great; we see lots of action regularly what with fiends popping up all over the place."

Elma takes Lucil's place and she and Yuna exchange hugs, and then walks over to the rest of the friends, "Hey guys its good to see you again. How have you been?" Rikku as chirpy as ever speaks for the other two.

"Hey! We've been alright well up until we found out about the stuff that's been going on, which put a damper on things."

"I know. It's awful isn't it? Still, look on the bright side we're going to hunt these things down and eliminate them," she says it more like a threat than a statement.

Nooj shakes his head, "Actually you are to bring back at least one of them alive, we need to know what possessed them to do this… if they can be reasoned with, but I think you can do that."

"That's fine so long as we can rough him up a lot," says Paine.

"We're all up for doing that," responds Elma

Yuna looks up and down at Elma and Lucil, "What are you doing here though? I thought you were Commander and Captain when we last saw you? I heard no mention of a Commander and Captain being a part of this team."

"Elma and I sacrificed our ranks to join this team, besides there was too much paper work for us back then. We wanted to see action again so here we are."

Nooj clears his throat to disrupt the conversation. Lucil and Elma step back into the crowd slightly, "Sorry sir."

"Let us continue. Lucil is one of the group's sergeants. Elma is one of the corporals. Over there at the back there in the white tank top is another person who I believe you are familiar with. Sergeant Beclem…" he rolls his eyes as he is cut off by Yuna.

"Beclem? Is that really you? My word I'm sorry I didn't recognise you with your mask off!"

"Good to see you guys again. I sort of went down the same road as Lucil and Elma. My life seemed to involve more paper work and less action so I joined the U.S.C.M. Screw my rank I like it here."

"Hey there you big meanie!" pips in Rikku.

"Still haven't forgiven me for what I said when we first met huh? Still, it's nice to see you still enjoy wearing very little when you go to work. How have you been Rikku?"

"I've been good, how about you?"

"I haven't been too bad. Not too bad at all," he grins, realising that they had never actually seen his face before. His spiky brown hair has not changed much since they last saw him. Beclem takes a few steps closer to them and they all realise that his eyes are green and that the irises spiral, Yuna and Rikku's mouths part whilst Paine raises an eyebrow.

"You're one of me?" asks Rikku amazed.

Beclem shrugs "Well actually I'm more like Yuna; I share blood of both the Al Bhed and… former Yevonites. My father is Al Bhed, my mother isn't."

Nooj looks at them both rather irritably, "Can I continue please?"

"Yes sir," Beclem answers, Rikku looks away slightly embarrassed.

"Now I think that wraps up all the people you know in this room. Let's get onto those you don't know. On your left closest to us are Privates Othello and Biggs, they are our flamethrowers," he points first to Othello first then Biggs.

Othello is an athletic looking, dark brown skinned man with short shaved hair, standing at around six foot three. Facially he has a slightly rounded face with cheek bones that are neither high nor low. His most noticeable feature is his blue eyes which stand out clearly from his dark skin.

Biggs is of a similar build to Othello, though shorter by an inch or two. He resembles a classic Al Bhed; except his eyes are not green, nor did the irises spiral. He is tanned and has blonde hair and his eyebrows are golden yellow.

"Behind them is Private Frost also known as 'Frosty', he's our sniper, and he has the steadiest hands we've ever seen," Nooj points to a short stocky man opposite Othello and Biggs.

The man's black hair was shaved to a very low grade, even shorter than Othello's, his eyes looked dull and lifeless, not something you would expect from a sniper.

"Behind him is Private Maddox, he is one of our gunners," the man behind Frost is a tall heavily built man like a cross between Biggs and Frost. His outgoing appearance is much more hostile than the previous three; his dark bushy eyebrows are angled slightly downwards towards the middle of his brow ridges making him look like he is permanently scowling. His eyes, separated by a nose with a curvy bridge, are dark and piercing and he does not acknowledge the presence of the friends.

Sensing his coldness Nooj moves on, "On your right is corporal, Nadine," he points to a woman whose looks would be better suited to a career outside of the army than within, her shoulder length brown hair is better kept than any of the men's hair, her sapphire eyes are much the same as Othello's own eyes.

"Privates Stone and Campbell, they are two of our riflemen," Stone is a powerfully built man and the tallest of the soldiers. He looks like a wrestler and this ideal is only reinforced by the two parallel scars running from the right of his left eye down to his chin. He was the only one of the group to have stubble, making him look quite messy but no less imposing.

Campbell is a classic Al Bhed; his short shaven hair is blonde, his skin is tanned and he has green spiralling eyes. He is a stocky man with beefy arms and a solid pumped up chest.

"Behind them is Private Vasquez, she is our other gunner," he points to an aggressive looking women who, like Maddox, seems to be constantly scowling. Her hair is short, black and scruffy and she wears a blood red bandana tied behind with the knot slightly to her left. Her dark brown eyes look almost sunken thanks to her slightly prominent black eyebrows and the hint of black eye shadow. Everything about her exudes a threatening darkness.

"And here on my left is our medic, Bishop," Bishop appears to be the oldest of the marines, his hairline is clearly receding, he has lines around his eyes and his cheeks are giving slight telltale signs of drooping.

With the exception of Vasquez and Maddox, the rest smile and nod their greetings. The door behind the group opens and three other people appear in the doorway.

"Ah good timing you three, I'm making introductions. Everyone this is the new Lieutenant. Lieutenant Baird this is the crew you are now in charge of," The whole group nods in acknowledgement.

Baird is a six foot beefy skin head with a carefully styled and shaped goatee; his brown eyes scan the marines carefully before speaking up.

"Okay people pay attention, here is what we know: A large number of people over the last day have been murdered across Spira, all the attacks occurred within an hour of each other. The perpetrators seem to be, according to eye witnesses almost invisible except for the light around them which seems to shimmer around them as they move, kind of like rippling water," A couple of the marines shift uneasily.

"They have killed using a variety of weapons from blades to small explosive balls of light. Now where these technologies come from we have no idea, it is like nothing we are able to build that's for sure. Now we were initially unable to think of a place to start looking for them but a short while ago we received a transmission from the new Macalania city site and, well here it is."

He pulls out from his jacket the recorder and plays it for them to hear. He continues to speak once it has finished.

"Now we have received no further transmissions from the colony base there and we have come to the conclusion that the assailants of the guards have quickly moved on over to Macalania. Why they would do that is still beyond us, but either way we have been assigned to go to Macalania and investigate, and if the hostiles are there then we are to capture at least one of them alive for questioning, assuming that they are indeed human."

Several of the marines shake their heads at the thought of actually having to attempt to capture one of these obviously psychotic individuals.

"A full report recording by Nooj Gippal and Baralai will be issued to you all to give you more details on the attacks and other bits of information; I suggest you listen to it carefully once you receive it because these things may be the deadliest opponents we have ever faced. Are there any questions?"

Maddox puts his hand up.

"Yes?"

"Sir I have to ask why we are having these people come along with us. We can handle anything, I know it, we know it and you know it, they are not trained like we are, they would slow us down, get in our way."

The comment had obviously struck a chord with Paine.

"Slow you down? Get in your way? You had better be a mile ahead of us when we get there Maddox or you will be eating those badly chosen words."

"Or else what huh? What are you gonna do about it? Considering you are standing in a room with heavily armed and highly trained marines I wouldn't be the one to throw around threats."

"You got that right." says Vasquez in a low threatening tone.

Paine looks at her disdainfully, staring right into Vasquez's eyes. The threatening look in Paine's eyes lights a spark in Vasquez who gets up and starts walking towards Paine, fists clenched, but is promptly stopped by Lucil and Elma. Paine just stands there unmoved, ready for action.

"Don't try it Vasquez, I've seen this girl fight and she's good and this is neither the time nor the place." says Lucil. Vasquez walks back to her seat never letting her sight leave Paine.

Othello steps away from the crowd slightly, "Sir I'm afraid I gotta agree with Mad on this one, they don't know how we work nor do they know procedure. It could prove detrimental. What about weapons? Are they gonna have our weapons and the equipment too? Because if that is the case then I'm not sure I want them anywhere near me."

Baird puts up a reassuring hand, "Whilst you all have a point I should like to make my own. Firstly, Yuna I hear is a master with a pair of pistols, so for a start I will be giving her a pair of our own pistols, which I think she would get the hang of very quickly. Secondly if it comes to close quarter combat, which it may well do given some of the weapons used by our quarry, Rikku, Paine and Tidus are all good with bladed weapons, in fact Nooj, Gippal and Baralai tell me they are probably better than you guys. Thirdly it doesn't take a genius to work out how to use a pulse rifle; I will be issuing those weapons to these three but to put you a little at ease, no grenades."

Several of the troops looked disappointed at the prospect of newbies handling their weapons. Maddox and Vasquez are now standing together muttering.

"Damn kids, they shouldn't be on this I don't care if they destroyed Sin, it's not like they did that unassisted," said Maddox in a hushed voice, not actually looking at Vasquez.

"Yeah as for that bitch with the red eyes, just gimme a reason, just one," she flashes Paine a glare.

Baird looked over at them suspiciously, "Quiet you two, now get packing I want to be out of here and in the Dropship in a couple of hours," he turns to Yuna and the others, "You guys follow me to the armoury and for a little basic training."

They all leave the room to the grumbling marines.

The five enter the marine's armoury. Weapons of various types are stacked on shelves, which comprise the first half of the room. The second half of the room is a shooting range with ten circular targets.

"Okay you guys listen closely, I'm gonna run you through the basics. Now since we got off to a bit of a bad start with some of the marines I'd better tell you now, do exactly as you are instructed when we leave with them whether it is Lucil, Elma, Beclem or any of the people you saw in that room today, you are on their turf."

"Hey, we were the ones who were willing put ourselves out to help you guys, we could walk away from this and the rest of you be damned," speaks up Yuna.

Baird puts his hands up defensively, "I know, I know and I am grateful but I promise you if you give them some time, or prove yourself in combat they will warm up to you. They are a tightly knit group and they stick together, which is why for now, you as outsiders take a back seat in heir hierarchy. They are also the best at what they do and they know it and that makes them arrogant, so they don't like getting help from others, that's what that outburst from Maddox and Vasquez was about. Oh by the way, those two have a criminal history together and they are extremely close. You aggravate one and the other will be all over you."

Rikku smirks, "Ha, they'd be better off keeping away from Paine than us from them." Paine says nothing but it was plain to see she agreed with Rikku and was eager for a fight.

"Whatever. Now let's go over a few things with the weapons you will be handling. Listen carefully; I'm going to be assigning you with some of our latest and greatest and I'm going to show you how to use them. Now before we continue are there any preliminary questions?

Rikku sticks her hand in the air, "Uh huh, why do we need your weapons? We have our own and we know how to use them."

"Because you are going up against enemies that can shoot from a distance, they will have probably killed you before you even get close to them; you need to be holding longer range weapons."

"I'm not going without my sword, simple as that." said Paine flatly.

"Fine, you can take your sword with you but the gun needs to be your primary weapon until you get toe to toe with these things, assuming they let you get toe to toe with them."

Baird walks over to a cabinet containing a set of bulky looking guns and pulls one out.

"This is the M41-A Pulse Rifle, a rapid firing assault rifle that uses the latest ten millimetre light armour piercing rounds. They are contained in this type of magazine," he holds up a large black magazine, the base of which almost completely covers his palm.

"Each magazine can hold ninety nine bullets. If you look at the front of the gun here you will notice two barrels, the smaller barrel fires the bullets and the bigger one is the barrel for the M40 grenades but as I said I can't let you use those. Now hold the gun handle with whichever hand you are more comfortable with, and make sure the butt of the rifle is sitting firmly into that hand's corresponding shoulder like so."

He holds the handle with his right hand and supports the pump action handle with his left hand; he brings the butt of the rifle up to his right shoulder and looks through the groove sight moulded into the top of the rifle, which to the layman looks like a handle you can use to carry the gun with. Align your corresponding eye with the groove that runs through this top handle to aim at targets, this is a highly accurate weapon, wherever you point this groove the bullets will pretty much hit what's through it every time. Of course that does depend on what range the target is from you. To fire first of all you need to release the safety catch which is on the right side of the gun; it's this little flip switch here. Next press this trigger here not the one in front of it."

Everyone watches and listens to his instructions carefully and make mental notes of the two triggers on the gun.

"When you run out of ammo in a magazine the counter here will read zero now you see this button here on the right side of the gun? Press this, the magazine will fall out; take another one from your stash, make sure the tip of the top bullet is facing in the direction of the open end of the barrel, slot it in and slap it in firmly. Then you're ready to rock and ruin."

"I recommend firing in short controlled bursts as it conserves ammo and increases accuracy of the gun by reducing human error. I will show you how to operate the grenade launcher as well but you won't be given grenades."

Baird takes a silver cylindrical object with the tip of one end painted red, about four times the width of the bullets they saw and about twice the length.

"This is the M40 grenade, despite its size it is very powerful and not to be taken lightly. You slot them into this silver part of the gun on the side here, the red end needs to be pointing in the direction of the open end of the barrel and you simply slot it in. To prime the grenade you need to pump the handle here, and you see the second trigger? That's the grenade trigger. The grenade moves very fast in a straight line, up to a point of course and explodes on impact."

Baird starts walking towards the edge of the shooting range with the others in tow, "Let me demonstrate the rifle firing," he aims at a circular target twenty metres away from him and fires a burst of rounds. The noise the gun makes is a deep throaty sound that creates booming echoes throughout the room. The target at the other end is obliterated.

"Whoa," whisper the four friends.

Baird nods, pleased that the demonstration has impressed, "Yup, that's a good word to describe it. Now I need to show you our standard issue sidearm."

He walks to another cabinet and pulls out a pistol and two magazines and holds them up for everyone to see.

"This is the M4-A4 Pistol; it has been modified from our previous M4-A3 pistol. Simple to operate and its very accurate. If you have only one of these with you, you need to hold it like this."

He holds the handle in his right with his index finger over the trigger and his left palm pressed against the middle, ring and little fingers of his right hand to keep the weapon steady.

"In my case I'm right handed so it will be my right hand that presses the trigger, the palm of your other hand needs to be pressed onto the three fingers that are holding the grip of the gun to steady it. To be able to fire the gun there is a little flip switch on the left side here. When the slide locks up you are out of bullets, there is a small button on the right side of the gun just above the handle that ejects the magazine and allows you to put in a new one, the slide should then automatically click back into place and you can start firing again. Now as for equipment you will need to be wearing our standard issue clothing, boots and armour."

At that point Paine speaks up, wagging her finger from side to side, "No, no, no, Baird I am perfectly happy wearing what I am right now and I especially don't want to wear something that makes me look like I'm an associate of Vasquez," Her tone had just enough of a threatening air to it to stop Baird from questioning her decision though he looked like he really wanted to.

"What about the rest of you? Are you going to stick with what you have?" they all nod.

Baird sighs. "I hope you know what you're doing. I think you're all crazy by the way. Now I'm going to go and address the other group and leave you to get a grip on the weapons. See you in a moment."

Baird walks out and the rest of them stand around and look at each other.

Tidus sticks his hands in his pockets and scans the others, "Well he seems nice enough I guess. And hey I like the look of these pulse rifles."

He walks over to a cabinet and picks up one from the shelf.

"Damn I am not looking forward to this. Looking for things that want to kill us is bad enough but having to search for them with a group of hot heads who hate us is unbearable," hisses Paine.

"I know but let's face it we haven't encountered anything in the past that we couldn't handle by ourselves and if we stick together then hey I don't think we have anything to worry about," plucks up Rikku.

"Yeah Rikku's right it's about time we started to look positively at this. We're all in this together and that's what counts, so let's get ourselves kitted out and lets kick some ass," speaks Yuna, almost as if she were ordering the others like a commander. The group look at her in surprise and no one says anything for a few moments. Yuna's eyes dart from one person to the next and then back again, "What?"

They all shake their heads, laugh and head to the cabinets of weapons to get ready for their next mission.


	4. Take Off and Landing

_This is an edited version of the original chapter 4._

**Chapter four**

**Take off and landing**

Shortly after having gotten used to using the pulse rifles and pistols, Baird returned to the room and guided the friends to a new room in Bevelle, though it was not so much a room as a hangar.

A large aircraft, slightly smaller in size to the Celsius and of a different shape is docked in the room. The cockpit of the aircraft sticks out of the front of the main, rectangular body like the nose of a concord.

Two large square openings, one on either side of the main body house eight large missiles, each one of the missiles have some sort of comical, yet evil looking face drawn onto the front of each of them. On the right side of the plane the words 'Bug Stomper' are written in big white letters.

Weapons are being prepared and supplies loaded into crates and these in turn are being loaded into a large four wheeled vehicle. The vehicle itself is about two and a half meters high, eight meters long and over three meters wide. Like the aircraft the colour of the machine is a dark green and, like the airship, someone has written on the side of it, albeit up side down in white letters saying 'this way up' and an arrow, which points in the direction of the roof.

On the other side of it is the symbol of the USCM- three gold stars on a blue, red and white spiralling background. Each star represents one of the three main political groups that have combined to form the Spiran government that Nooj, Baralai and Gippal are the leaders of.

On top of the vehicle are two, six barrelled mini guns on a large, armoured swivel turret and on the front right side is a smaller swivel turret with two heavy machine guns mounted inside it.

Baird walks with Yuna, Paine, Rikku and Tidus towards Lucil, Elma and Beclem who chatter amongst themselves. The four friends now carry their own pulse rifles and pistols, except for Yuna who has opted to keep her faithful 'Tiny Bees'. However unlike the other marines they are not wearing armour and helmets. Lucil, Elma and Beclem notice the group moving towards them and discontinue their conversation.

"Good to see you again," speaks Lucil first, "we have instructed the others to be as helpful to you as they would to each other. But we get the kind of feeling some of them are only going to be helpful if truly necessary."

"Piece of advice; steer clear of Vasquez and Maddox they are not happy for you guys to be here," advises Elma

"If they're looking for a fight then they just need to give me the word," replies Paine coldly, Elma just rolls her eyes.

Beclem looks at them all, slightly puzzled, "I see you have your own Pulse Rifles and pistols but where is your armour and combat gear?"

"We didn't really want them," replies Rikku.

"Why? They could save you from harm not to mention keep you warm. Macalania is pretty cold these days; that thunder storm is still over there so it's wet and windy. If you go there with only what you are wearing now you will freeze your toes off."

Tidus shakes his head defensively, "We were going to but then we decided there wasn't much point in having the armour, these things have got some serious firepower up their sleeves, those guards were wearing armour of their own and that failed to protect them. If we get shot at or slashed by these things then armour isn't really going to help protect us. We would rather trade in the armour for better manoeuvrability and agility."

"Yeah armour would just slow us down. And we don't worry about the cold; I've walked over Mount Gagazette in what I'm wearing right now," states Rikku, Beclem looks at her as if she is mad "Besides, that armour is real uncomfortable."

Lucil sighs, "Please put some on, for us."

Maddox walks up to the group having overheard the last few moments of the conversation and puts a hand on Lucil's shoulder.

"Ma'am you heard the girls they don't want the armour. If they get hurt because they don't have it then it's their own fault. I don't see why we should force them to change their minds, a person learns through experience, right? Well this is as good a time as any to learn to listen to sensible orders, which they have decided to disobey."

Elma flashes him a hard look, "Get back to work marine."

Rykov gives the others a quick scowl and walks off.

Yuna looks at the three soldiers with pleading eyes, "Please Lucil, don't worry about us, we've pulled through bigger things than this with no armour, we'll be fine."

Lucil gives a heavier sigh of resignation, "If you insist. I only pray that you do not regret this."

"We won't," insists Yuna, reassuringly putting her hands on Lucil's shoulders.

"Ok, well are you guys ready to go then? All you really need to have on you for now are your weapons, the rest of us need to finish gearing up then we will all get onto the APC," Lucil points to the bulky four wheeled vehicle, "We get in there and stay there for the duration of the flight to Macalania, the flight by the way will be made in that Dropship there. It's not going to be the most comfortable of rides but you'll get used to it. Now you'll have to excuse us, we need to finish getting ready."

Lucil, Elma and Beclem walk off to attend to their chores whilst everyone else makes the final checks to their weapons and equipment. For a few minutes none of the friends or Baird say anything, they just observe the marines, taking in how they operate. Most of them go about their business with what looks like efficiency, especially Lucil, Elma and Beclem who, being officers, had to set the tone.

There were a couple who were more casual about their work, Maddox and Vasquez, ever the sullen and grumpy ones were setting the example of slackers, going about their tasks with only half a heart.

Baird, having watched the activity, moves close to the entrance of the open side hatch of the APC and shouts out to the marines, "Okay people saddle up, get everything into the APC we gotta move now!"

The activity suddenly doubles as people make the last of their preparations in a rush, Vasquez and Maddox move to the APC and step into the entrance and begin taking weapons and equipment from everyone. Each time they take something they move into the vehicle for a couple of moments and then reappear, presumably having stored it somewhere inside.

Eventually, after all the equipment is stocked and stacked everyone gathers to the APC and steps inside, including the four friends. Inside the APC the seats occupy approximately a third of the APC taking up most of the middle portion of the inside. The rear third contains all the equipment, weapons and supplies, whilst the front of the vehicle contains what looks like a small communications and operations centre, and the driver's seat, with space for a few extra people. All the seats have metal safety harnesses that come down from above, much like roller coaster harnesses.

In the drivers front seats sit Baird, Bishop and Frost. Everyone else is seated and harnessed in the main section. As the girls and Tidus step in and take their own seats the marines look at the clothing they wear and either raise their eyebrows, scowl or mouth something along the lines of 'Oh man'.

The group try their best to ignore them. Fortunately for them Vasquez and Maddox are at the far end away from them. Next to Yuna sits Campbell and Rikku, to her right and left respectively. Opposite her sits Tidus with Paine and Othello next to him, on his right and left respectively.

The motor of the APC suddenly roars to life and the hulking piece of metal begins to reverse into the Dropship, skilfully piloted by Bishop. They park on the ramp of the ship which rises, thanks to the two powerful hydraulic lifting bars connecting the ramp to the main hull of the ship.

The electronic voice of Janus echoes into the APC, "Pilot here, you guys ready for takeoff? Not that you have a choice on that subject of course," the engines of the Dropship start up and emit a constant low pitched drone that slowly increases in pitch as the engines power up.

After a few moments the main hangar door makes a metallic clunking sound and the doors open up, revealing to anyone who happened to be standing in the hangar at the time that they were a good hundred meters above the surrounding buildings, giving the Dropship ample space to exit the hangar without the possibility of hitting something on its way out.

Another loud clunk sounds out from the doors and they stop opening. With surprising grace the Dropship lifts off and reverses out of the hangar, turns in midair and moves away from the city, up into the clear skies. Janus turns the hulking machine into the direction of Macalania and suddenly the ships jets kick in, propelling them off with great acceleration.

After several moments the force from the acceleration subsides and the airship felt normal once more. Incredibly, Biggs has managed to fall asleep in his seat, his head tilted backwards and his mouth slightly agape, much to the amusement of those sitting close to him.

At this point Yuna decides to try and make at least one new ally in the group and turns to Campbell.

"Hi, you're Campbell right?"

He gives a small smile and nods, "That's my name don't wear it out."

"I won't. So how long have you been a part of this division then?"

"I was one of the more late arrivals to the division. The squad was formed about a month after you and… those two there," he motions his head to Rikku and Paine, having failed to remember their names.

"Rikku and Paine," Yuna reminds him.

"Right, ok. Anyway I joined about two months after the squad was formed. Ever since then I've been going all over Spira hunting fiends, settling disputes, that sort of thing. Our unofficial motto is: 'security through superior firepower' and so far we have been able to uphold that motto."

Yuna nods thoughtfully, "I saw on the side of the Dropship the words 'Bug Stomper' what do you mean by bugs?"

"That's our affectionate name for fiends and anything else that gives the people of Spira a headache."

"Oh I see. So Nadine, Stone and yourself are three of the riflemen yes?"

"That's right we can handle the Pulse rifle better than anyone else here. When each of us first joined we were all put through exercises with each weapon available and were assigned the weapon we performed the best with. Maddox and Vasquez get to make use of the one of our more advanced weapons, the M56 Smartgun," Campbell looks proud of that statement, as if it should mean something to Yuna, which unfortunately for him, it doesn't.

"Smartgun?" she looks at him puzzled.

"That's right. The M56 Smartgun is an automatic squad support weapon; it's more powerful than the pulse rifle, faster too; it's like a portable shredder really. Whilst considering its size it is quite light, even so, the actual gun system is still mounted onto an operator's harness, and above that it is less maneuverable than a pulse rifle. The best thing about it is that it tracks the enemy, but firing must be controlled by the operator. If the tracking system reads a viable target the gun will use the mechanics in the pivot on the harness to follow the target and the operator just needs to pull the trigger. It's a little more complex than that though for the operator because they need to have one eye covered with a screen of what the targeting computer sees, it's like having one eye in your head and one at your hip so it can get pretty confusing and I sucked at using it, but Maddox and Vasquez seemed natural at it so they got those guns."

Yuna nods, processing the information for a few moments, "I see, I think. Baird said that Othello and Biggs are flame throwers yes?"

"That's right; they're our burners, a pair of pyromaniacs those two. They use the M240 flamethrower, which is a lightweight flamethrower using pressurized, ultra-thickened napalm fuel stored in a canister attached to the underside of the gun and is ignited by a nozzle burner. It's an awesome thing to watch as it can fire a burst of flame at targets up to 30 feet away," Yuna raises an impressed eyebrow.

"Once a target is hit, fuel droplets will remain on the target for about 30 seconds. However, it is vulnerable to small-arms fire, as the fuel canister is known to explode violently when hit. It is something of a vicious weapon and not for use against fire based fiends but it's highly effective against pretty much everything else. I don't want to make them sound like psycho's or something but lets just say that Biggs and Othello have a greater appreciation for fire than the rest of us, but they are good with them, no doubting that."

"And Frost? He's the sniper isn't he?"

"Correct. That guy has the steadiest pair of hands I have ever seen; calm as a coma, he's called 'Frosty' for a very good reason. When out in the field he usually takes a few long range shots to soften up fiends or eliminate them completely before they get close to us. Once the fiends close in we mop the rest up. He carries our WY 102 Sniper rifle, arguably the most accurate sniper rifle in Spira and incredibly powerful too, it fires large and pointed armor piercing rounds at super high velocities, it can kill weaker fiends in one shot and does some serious damage to the rest."

"What about Bishop he wasn't carrying any of the rifles."

"Bishop needs to keep as much space on his person as possible for medical supplies, but he does have a pair of M4A4 pistols tucked behind him if necessary."

Yuna nods and stays silent, but her face shows she is thinking carefully about something, whether about what Campbell has just told her or something else. Eventually she turns to look at Campbell again and opens her mouth but no words come out and she looks back in front of her.

Campbell, having noticed this looks at her inquisitively, "You were going to say something?"

His question focuses Yuna's mind a little and she turns back to him, "Umm yes I was, what it is that Maddox and Vasquez seem to have against us? Baird told us what he thinks is the problem but he's new to your division isn't he. I figured he wouldn't know the complete reason why so I would rather get a reason from one of you guys, you know, from someone who knows them better than he does."

Campbell looks up to the ceiling and ponders the question for a few moments then turns back to Yuna, "Well, see the thing is Maddox and Vasquez were the first two members of this division and they went through hell to get here, we all did- the training for this is rigorous. But there were a couple of extra reasons why those two had it tougher. They were in prison once, and they had a rough time there. They came out of it with a lot of pent up aggression and anger and they signed up for this in order to release some of that anger but some of it never went. Because they were here first they see themselves as the leaders despite being a lower rank than Lucil, Elma and Beclem, and the way they figure it, if they had to go through all that arduous training, then new recruits had better do the same, which up until you lot showed up they have, we all went through Sin's backside and out again to get here and now you guys just strolled in. I won't hold it against you, in fact most of the guys here won't either, but those two will. Oh and if they become aggressive towards you, try not to fall back to Lucil, Elma and Beclem for support ok? That is a real no- no. You see whilst those three went through the training like the rest of us, because of their ranks in their previous jobs they were seen by the top brass as the rightful leaders of the squad, this has never sat well with Maddox and Vasquez. You stick up for yourself and you do what you can to earn their respect. It shouldn't come to it but if those two want to pick a fight I'm afraid you will have no choice. And I guarantee you they will want a hand to hand, no weapons fight, they love those. And if that happens, good luck, we have all fought them, even if we were only training and they have never lost. I suggest you just stay out of their way for a while."

Yuna looked quite intimidated at the thought of having to fight Maddox and Vasquez hand to hand, "Oh okay. Can't say I want to fight them, don't think any of us want to, except possibly Paine."

"She's the one who pissed Vasquez off, right?"

"Yup."

"Damn that was a bad idea. I've never seen someone behave like that to her, and I don't think she wants to let her get away with it. She needs to be on her guard."

"You're scaring me already and we haven't even started looking for these murderers yet.

"Well all I'm saying is that you guys had better be on your toes and prove yourself if the time comes."

"Don't worry, we will," Speaks up Rikku, who until now has stayed silent, staring at the floor.

Yuna looks at her surprised, "How long have you been listening?"

"I was always listening."

Campbell smirks, "Ha! Rikku I have to ask, do you always wear a bikini, thong and miniskirt when you go to work?"

"Yup it's more comfortable. Besides are you complaining?"

"I don't think any of us are complaining. But don't you think you are going to get cold when we get there?"

"Hey I've walked up to the top of Mount Gagazette in this stuff I'll have you know!" she says indignantly.

"You're nuts."

"You have to be a little crazy to survive in this world, otherwise you die of boredom."

"Wow you sounded almost wise there for a second," mocks Paine who it turns out, has been listening to the conversation as well.

"Very funny," Rikku replies giving Paine a sarcastic smile.

Campbell gives a small chuckle, "Well you have to be the most interesting bunch I've seen in recent years, and although none of us have said anything to you guys about it, we're all grateful for what you have done for Spira over the last few years what with Sin, Shuyin and Vegnagun. Although they would never admit to it, I recon even Maddox and Vasquez are grateful for it too… well deep down at least."

Yuna gives a small smile, "That's okay we did it for Spira and those we care about, and given the opportunity I would expect anyone else to do the same."

"Well that's why we all joined up, to do our bit for Spira. And it looks like we're about to do it again," they all relax into their seats and remain silent.

Time travels on for another hour in which time only small talk ensues between the group and Campbell. Slowly the APC starts to shake slightly, and after each moment the shaking becomes slightly harder as the Dropship enters the outskirts of the storm above Macalania and starts to decrease its altitude.

Janus' voice buzzes in the APC, "Hold onto your seatbelts guys, things are going to get rough. It's very windy so I'm not going to be setting down next to the facility, it will get too dangerous; I can see lightning bolts all over the place. I'm going to set her down here."

The Dropship rapidly decelerates and then comes to a hovering position then sets down on the ground with a slight thud. The ramp lowers allowing the APC to leave and Baird fires up the engine.

He calls out from the driver's seat "Okay guys ready to roll?"

"Sir!" shouts everyone unison.

Baird takes a quick look back at the men and shakes his head in false dismay, "Somebody wake up Biggs."

With a roar the APC drives off the ramp and heads in the direction of the desolate Macalania City, the ramp closing behind it.


	5. Stalkers

**Chapter 5**

**Stalkers**

The rain falls down onto Macalania City and the APC in a steady stream; the dense dark gray clouds above do not look like they intend to give up their downpour anytime soon, and lightning bolts flash here and there. Most of them fork out in the distance but a couple of the bolts connect with some of the higher rising buildings of the new city.

The APC heads up a makeshift street with two uninteresting looking buildings either side of it, the machine growls to a halt about twenty meters outside the building to its right- a two story building resembling a small apartment block, where the workers of the city reside.

The hospital is to the east of the block effectively on the opposite side of the wide street, the area is completely deserted and the only sign that people ever worked here are the digging equipment, vehicles and numerous other pieces of equipment that litter the area.

Baird, having turned off the engine of the APC is now standing in front of all the marines, addressing them as they grab their weapons and equipment.

"Alright guys now listen up. New additions to the team or not, we play this by the book. Now I've decided that in order for these guys to learn how we operate and to put the rest of you at ease a little, they will stay here and observe you on the monitors here with me until you have cleared the building, at which point we will join you. Now as for the building itself this one contains living quarters on the first floor. The ground floor has offices, storage facilities, med labs for treating minor injuries and a few more living quarters. One of the offices contains a room with a computer map of the entire complex which is where we will meet once you have cleared the area. Squad A will take the first floor, there are stairs on the inside left of the entrance to the building, take them and sweep the area. Squad B you will take the ground floor, again, sweep and meet in the computer room. Got it?

"Sir!" responds everyone unanimously.

Baird turns to Frost "Frosty you know what to do, get onto the APC and take a good look at the area to check for our targets, if you see them, feel free to open fire and we will assist. If the coast is clear then we will all move once we get the all clear from you."

Frosty nods and gets out his sniper rifle, he kneels in front of the side door at the APC his rifle ready. Campbell opens up the door and Frosty scouts what he can see immediately ahead of him. He sees nothing, no shimmering air, just rain, which itself had started to slow down to a light drizzle.

He steps cautiously out, and every one of his senses go into sniper mode, his hearing drawing his attention to anything suspicious, his eyes scan the area like a hawk searching for its quarry. He slowly moves from in front of the side door round to the back of the APC.

The other marines inside ready their weapons in anticipation, knowing they are now both the hunters and the hunted. Vasquez has moved to where Frost was standing in front of the door, her Smartgun points to the outside, ready to open fire on anything her targeting computer picks up.

Frost clambers up the ladder at the rear end of the APC and stands in the center of the roof. He holds his rifle scope to his right eye and performs a careful three-sixty sweep of the area, checking roof tops and the ground alike. His keen eyes find nothing and he lowers his gun slightly and gives a sharp knock on the roof of the APC signaling the all clear.

Frost continues to scout the area through his scope, hoping to pick out random movements in the air. Unknown to Frost, his eyes failed to pick up a slight blur in the air on the building behind him when he made his sweep. The ghostlike presence remains virtually motionless, watching the vehicle and Frost.

Through the eyes of the watcher, Frost's entire body glows almost like a rainbow; his head glows white and red, his body is red and orange, and his limbs shine yellow and green. He stands out like a sore thumb from his surroundings which are mostly blue with small 'shadows' giving the stalker some definition of the shape and size of the marine's surroundings.

An odd, faint thumping noise constantly sounds in its ears, the noise can be heard along with a strange deep humming that fades away then gets louder in regular cycles. The creature makes a strange growl or purring noise followed by peculiar clicking sounds, like teeth chattering and continues watching.

Baird looks at the marines as they hear Frost's tapping. "You heard the man, Squad A move out. But make sure you watch your fire and check your targets remember there is a chance we will find civilians in here, smartgunners I want your weapons on four round bursts only, Vasquez you have point."

Beclem, Vasquez, Nadine, Campbell and Othello file quickly out of the APC and walk steadily towards the entrance of the building, their weapons and eyes sweeping their surroundings for signs of movement, the months of training being put to the ultimate test; looking for enemies that couldn't be seen.

The marine's movements are watched by another translucent form, but this time the creature's observations are above them and closer than the other one. All the troops' bodies glow with multiple colours, mostly of whites, reds, yellows, and greens. From the creatures perspective the noise of the troops footsteps are exaggerated and have an eerie electrical echo to them.

Beclem looks around himself very carefully; with his pulse rifle to his shoulder but fails to notice the small translucent anomaly on the roof of the building, dismissing it as the rain playing with him. Seeing through the eyes of their stalker it looks directly back at the ignorant Beclem from above and watches him. The group arrives at the entrance of the building and stop; a control panel to the left of the door looks broken.

Beclem looks over to Campbell "Campbell run a bypass."

"Yes sir."

Campbell gets out a small, odd looking device with numbers, small dials and a couple of electric leads dangling from the side. He walks up to the boxy controls and opens up a small panel and fiddles with a few wires, connects a few to his electronic device, it makes a few beeps and the door begins to open.

Back inside the APC Baird, Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Tidus watch the marine's movements through cameras that are connected to their helmets. Next to each video screen is another screen showing each soldier's pulse and brainwave patterns.

Beclem's voice sounds out in the APC "Looks like the power's still on here, though it looks like nobody's home."

"Roger that." Replies Baird. Through her camera Vasquez can be seen moving into the doorway first, followed by the rest of the squad who turn left to get to the staircase, then stand and wait.

"Okay second squad move in." orders Baird.

Lucil, Elma, Maddox, Stone and Biggs file out of the APC and proceed as the others had before them; once again the lucid form observes the marines, their bodies glowing colourfully in its vision.

Baird's voice sounds out in Beclem and Lucil's ear pieces "Activate motion trackers and proceed with the sweep of your respective areas."

"Roger." Reply the two sergeants.

Baird punches the roof of the APC a couple of times and Frost jumps off, steps inside and closes the door behind him.

The first group in the meantime has begun to proceed upstairs. Vasquez walks next to Beclem who is holding a motion tracker, which is making the familiar 'pip, pip, pip' noise indicating no movement; Campbell and Nadine stand behind the leaders whilst Othello brings up the rear, looking behind himself every now and again.

They reach the top of the stairs and are confronted with a long corridor; the lights cast slight shadows around the drab looking surroundings, with one or two of them flickering randomly. They proceed to move slowly down the eerily silent hall, Nadine and Campbell each duck into the rooms they pass to check for people they may have missed as they move.

"Anything?" murmurs Vasquez.

Beclem shakes his head slowly "No life signs yet, let's just keep moving."

They walk past and investigate each room, but there are no signs of life.

The second squad moves down the main corridor that was right in front of them when they first entered the building. Maddox takes point with Lucil next to him with the motion tracker, like Beclem's, her motion tracker makes no high pitches beeps either, Elma and Stone follow them and Biggs backs them up, checking behind the group frequently.

"Talk to me Lucil." Whispers Maddox

"Everything is clear no signs of life" she replies reassuringly.

Baird's voice sounds in Lucil and Beclem's ear pieces from the control room of the APC.

"How's it going in there you two?"

Lucile replies first, "We can't see any signs of life here, though there is evidence that something did happen. We have evidence of small arms fire, I've seen a few empty bullet casings lying around and bullet ricochet marks on the metal here and there."

"Beclem?" asks Baird.

"Yeah, we have similar stuff here too and then some. We've also seen small explosives damage- probably frag grenades. We're not seeing bodies though, which is kind of strange considering our perpetrator's modus operandi.

"Well keep looking."

"Roger."

A translucent figure; the one that had watched the marines from above the building that they had entered jumps off of the building and thuds to the floor then seemingly stands upright. It looks at the group who are now about 50 metres away from it, heading further down the hallway. It moves into the building but turns left and up the stairs, it's feet faintly thumping on the cold metal as it moves. It reaches the top of the stairs and takes a quick glance of the first squad who just turn round a corner and disappears from its sight.

Outside the block a second shimmering figure leaps down from the roof of the building and watches the second squad that is now even further away. It moves slowly towards them and this time it doesn't move to the left to take the stairs, it continues to move towards the squad, closing the gap until they stand only around twenty meters away from them, then it quickly and quietly ducks into a room on the right.

Upstairs, the second squad's motion tracker makes the high pitched 'beep, beep' noise for a few seconds making everyone freeze, but the noise abruptly stops.

Beclem speaks into his earpiece "Hey first squad we picked up a movement signal, was that you we just read? We are standing next to room 72. The signal was there for a few seconds then disappeared and it was too close to us on the motion tracker for us to not have seen it right in front of us, was it one of you guys?"

"Could have been me, I was trailing there for a few moments." Speaks up Biggs

"Damn it Biggs, don't leave us for a second you know what we're up against. We can't be distracted by friendly readings." Scolds Lucil

"Sorry ma'am."

"You got that Beclem?"

Beclem rolls his eyes, "Biggs you arse, I thought we were gonna be mincing something there for a second."

"Sorry to disappoint you sir. You can take pot shots at me when we get back to the shooting range sir."

Beclem snorts in amusement. He the others enter a large room that was more like an office than a place of residence. They gather around a hole in the ceiling, directly below which is a hole in the floor and another slightly smaller hole below that.

"Hey Baird, are you seeing this? It looks… melted, I can't tell what the hell did this, I don't think there was any mention of our 'friends' being able to do something like this. What do you think?"

"I don't know Beclem and frankly I'm not sure I want to find out what did that, maybe the targets have some sort of welding tool that wouldn't have been used in those earlier attacks. Continue your sweep."

The soldiers get up and move on past the hole; milliseconds before a quick shimmer of light runs across the hole below on the first floor and disappears. The two squads finish their sweeps only to find nothing.

"Sir this place looks dead. Whatever happened here has long been finished." says Lucil.

"I'll second that sir, all we can find is evidence if a fire fight and no bodies of any kind. We found a few blood stains here and there but they are only small ones, nothing to indicate that they were mutilated like those guards."

"Alright fall back to the computer room, we're coming in."

Squad A turns to head back the way they came, Vasquez and Othello, now bringing up the rear talk under their breath.

"They're coming in. I feel safer already." Says the large man sarcastically.

"Damn jerk offs." Scowls Vasquez

The figure who had followed squad B peeks around a corner and sees the squad heading back towards it about forty metres away. It moves out from the stairs and ducks quickly and silently into the first room on its left and remains hidden from the view of the doorway and remains utterly motionless.

Baird, Bishop, Frost, Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Tidus walk through the main door and turn left towards the stairs but go past them down a short corridor. Ten meters further down Baird turns into a room, followed by the others.

Beclem's squad move by the final room having been unable to detect the creature thanks to its motionless stance, Othello gives a quick peek into the room but sees nothing, the creature having hidden behind a corner in the room that could not be seen by anyone unless they went into the room.

Lucil's squad heads towards the main entrance ignoring the previously swept rooms. From within one of the rooms the second stalker watches from over the top of a desk giving a clear view of the open doorway.

The colourful forms of Lucil and Maddox walk by and the ghostly shape poking above the desk remains frozen on the spot until the two soldiers finish walking by. The other three marines trailing slightly leave a time gap for the watcher to slowly duck back down and listen for the other two to walk past. Elma and Stone walk by the door, quickly followed up by Biggs who pauses for a second and glances into the office.

"Hey Biggs, keep up." says Elma.

Biggs moves on from the door with a huff, catching up to the others. The amplified thumping of Biggs' steps in the creature's ear fades away slowly as he makes his way back to the group. It stands up and makes a quite purring sound and moves to the edge of the door and peaks round to watch the group move away and turn right, following in the footsteps of the others.

Yuna, Rikku, Paine, Tidus and the others mill about in the communications room, only to stop to turn their heads in the direction of the door as Lucil and her squad walk in.

The room has a number of communication consoles and various pieces of electronic equipment secured to the steel walls. Part of the room has a few rows of lockers, some of which are open and empty. Baird, Bishop and Frost lean over a central console about the size of a pool table and facing in an upwards direction, that gives off a white and blue glow.

The marines gather round it as soon as the new arrivals have all entered the room and closed the door behind them, only Beclem stays away from the group as he stands facing the door, Pulse rifle pointing in the air in one hand and motion tracker in the other hand aimed as accurately as he could guess in the general direction of the main entrance.

Baird speaks up, loudly enough to make sure that Beclem can keep up with the conversation "This is a map of the entire 'city' this building here with the small red dot is the one we are in right now," he points to the red dot "This one here, about 200 meters east of us is the hospital and med labs," he points to a building with a large white 'H' over it "There is some pretty interesting equipment in there I hear, medical and then some, Bishop would be in his element there. Now, see these two buildings here?" he points to two buildings further from their location than the hospital. "The left one here is the main power source for the city, its designers call it the 'Ultima reactor'. This building here, the one to the west of the reactor is the control center of the reactor; they are both situated five hundred meters north of this building."

Yuna looks at Baird "What's the deal with the Ultima reactor?"

"It is pretty much like it sounds. The core of the reactor is constantly generating Ultima spells, using incredibly sophisticated methods that virtually no one understands, the designers have been able to harness the energy released in an Ultima spell and convert it into electrical energy. Nooj, Gippal and Baralai wanted to create the most advanced City in the world here you see. But an advanced city needs an advanced power supply and it doesn't get much more advanced than this thing, it produces massive amounts of energy and with no detrimental emissions. So long as none of the core systems is ruptured or the coolant goes offline, then it is perfectly stable and provides a clean and eternally renewable energy source."

Rikku blinks a few times "Wait what happens if one of those things does happen?"

"Well if the problem is not fixed in time or the core is not shut down, Macalania will be a very quiet neighborhood for at least fifty years. The reactor will explode in one enormous Ultima spell that would certainly devastate the entire area of Macalania."

Rikku rolls her eyes in dismay "Oh is that all? Geez you don't need to sound so casual about it. 50 years? What the heck is it that would stop us from living here for that long?"

"After the main Ultima explosion the entire area will be… saturated if you like, with stagnant Ultima energy. This energy will remain here for the next fifty years or so and the only way that energy will dissipate is through the creation of many smaller Ultima spells, these will go on appearing over the district randomly for that period of time making it extremely dangerous for people to be here."

Rikku and the others stare at him bewildered.

"Snap out of it all of you, that's not going to happen ok?" says Baird, slightly irritated. "Hey Campbell use the computer to give us the status of the reactor and its vital components."

Campbell moves over to another console and starts tapping away at a few keys "Okay let's see here," He plays with a console for a few moments. "Here's the lowdown, the reactor is online and stable and no coolant issues can be detected, I can't see any problems, so we're safe from that at least."

"That's reassuring." Said Rikku, though she did not sound entirely convinced.

"Right we've swept this area, our next objective is to check out the hospital there may be survivors there or have some records as to what happened here. Not only that, but there is a computer there that has a scanning device that can read life signs, if there are any survivors in Macalania at all then that computer will find them."

The creature that had been following squad B stands at the top of the stairs and makes an odd clicking/ purring noise. With lightly thudding footsteps it moves down to the bottom of the stairs and heads to the exit of the complex. It is joined by the second ghostlike figure and they stand next to each other making clicking and growling noises.

Beclem's motion tracker starts beeping and two small white dots appear on the tracker's screen.

"Whoa! I have movement here, two signals, they've appeared out of nowhere and they're only 11 metres away, they were heading to the exit but they seem to have stopped going anywhere." The two white dots on the screen suddenly move across the screen and then disappear completely.

"It looks like they just moved out through the exit. This doesn't make sense, they must have been inside this building the whole time and yet we didn't see them. Their cloaking ability is incredible and they must have been standing perfectly still too because the trackers didn't detect anything until now." Beclem was visibly and audibly worried and for good reason.

"What shall we do sir? Shall we go out and fight?" asks Beclem.

"No it's probably a trap, they know we're here and they know we're here for them, if we move now they will probably be standing on the roof of the building looking straight down at the door ready to take a shot at anything that moves. I think we should stake this out, test their patients, if they don't have very much patients they will give up and come here to get us and we will have an advantage thanks to the doorway, which can act like a bottle neck."

"And when shall we leave? We can't stay here forever." Asks Lucil.

"I say we stay here for an hour, I don't think any bloodthirsty human would want to wait that long for us to get out of here, they would probably give up. In the meantime, lock up that door there by the comm. panel and keep the other tracker facing it. Maddox you will have point when we move and Vasquez you guard our six, those Smartguns can pick up anything that's moving, even something invisible. The rest of you stay between them and keep your eyes peeled, remember there are supposedly five of these things and we just saw two of them. Oh and one more thing you two; I want your guns on full automatic for this and shoot at anything that moves no matter what size it is, so long as its in front of you and not behind. As for the rest of us we are to stay between those two, do not drift in front of them, we don't want incidents of friendly fire."

"Yes sir," Says everyone in unison.

"Good, Vasquez and Beclem, for the next hour I want your attention fixed to that door ok?" The two marines nod affirmatively and turn towards the door.

Time seemed to slow down for everyone as they anxiously await the hour to be up. The four friends were surprised at how little everyone spoke, it was eerily quite. Most of the marines just sat down with their weapons, nodded intermittently towards each other, or gave no eye contact at all and just stared at the floor or the girls. The only consistent sound was the pip-pipping of the motion trackers, which registered no movement nearby.

"_Good thing Vasquez and Maddox are the ones using the Smartguns and no one else, they can't start a fight that way… unless they turn on us… what if they do? What if those things don't make and appearance and they decided to break the ice and turn on Paine…not that she can't handle herself, but this is not the time or the place."_

"You ok Yunie?" whispers Rikku, having noticed her looking distant and thoughtful.

"I was just thanking the fact that Maddox and Vasquez are distracted right now so they can't cause any trouble for us."

"Huh, I don't think Lucil, Elma, Beclem or Baird would allow anything to happen, you should quit worrying about those around us and be more concerned with those… things out there." She gives Yuna a small, comforting smile and looks around her at all the tense individuals in the room, each one anxious to get out of the room as soon as possible.

No one was entirely sure whether they wanted to be inside or outside. Inside they knew they were safe, but for how long? Their stalkers could come for them at any time; this made the atmosphere uncomfortably claustrophobic, like an itch that couldn't be scratched. Outside of course, they were unsafe, and in the open for attack. But if they were outside there would be an element of certainty; action was guaranteed, and no matter what the possibilities are of getting killed, to the marines, action was what they liked, it was what they were trained for, not waiting around.

The time trundled on by and soon Baird was checking his watch with increasing frequency, obviously getting as impatient as everyone else. Sensing a change in Baird's demeanor those marines who had put their weapons down began migrating back to where they had put them.

Baird took another glance at his watch then looked at all the marines "Ok grab your gear, it's time to roll"

There is a flurry of activity in the room as everyone grabs their weapons and move to where Beclem and Vasquez stand. Vasquez herself steps back to make way for Maddox, who points his Smartgun at the door. Beclem moves over to a small electronic panel next to the door and presses a couple of buttons, unlocking it. The door opens automatically, thanks to Beclem and Maddox's proximity to it. Maddox walks through the doorway and turns left, heading slowly towards the open exit with Beclem right next to him, motion tracker and rifle in hand with everyone else in tow.

They reach the exit but wait just inside allowing everyone to group together and get ready for the run to the APC. Beclem checks his motion tracker which shows no readings. He looks at Baird and nods for the 'go ahead'. Baird acknowledges and looks over at everyone, raising his arm into the air at the same time. He makes a small throwing motion with his arm and everyone jogs out of the exit without word.

Vasquez brings up the rear as instructed but is forced to move backwards to make sure their rears were covered by her gun. Lucil stands next to her, her motion tracker pointing in the direction of the building, suddenly the motion tracker starts beeping and two white dots appear on the screen.

"I've got two readings! They waited for us!" Shouts Lucil. Without giving any of them time to react, a loud metallic 'bang' echoes through the area and Biggs grabs his waist, yelling in pain.

"OW! Son of a Behemoth, it got me!"

Baird glances back at Biggs "Keep moving! Vasquez can you pick up the shooter?"

"No!" she calls out, looking around frantically.

Another shot rings out.

"Aaaaahhh!" hollers Tidus, who is already beginning to bleed from his arm. He falters in his running but manages to stay on his feet.

"TIDUS!" screams Yuna looking to her lover.

"I'll be okay, just keep going!" he replies, clutching his left arm.

Vasquez's Smartgun suddenly moves itself on its pivot, pointing to something on Vasquez's right against the wall of the complex and emits an audible bleeping noise, indicating it had found a target.

"Eat this you freak!" roars Vasquez pulling the trigger on the gun.

The deep booms of the smart gun ring out and the muzzle of the barrel flashes fiercely as it hoses out bullets. A couple of meters to the right of the door they had just come out of the bullets hit their translucent target causing splatters of fluorescent green liquid to hit the wall of the complex. An inhuman cry of anguish emanates from the injured creature and small crackles of blue electricity flash across its body. Vasquez looks at the creature as it begins to appear out of thin air and slump to the ground. In her haste she fails to get a prolonged look at her kill but notices the metal mask covering its face, concealing its identity.

"What the hell is that thing?" she shouts out as Maddox reaches the APC and opens it up allowing everyone to scramble inside.

She steals one last quick glance at it as she steps inside the vehicle and shuts the door, seeing a body lying on the floor covered in the fluorescent green substance, that she could only assume was its blood. Baird wastes no time in starting the APC up and accelerates the vehicle, covering the short distance to the hospital in seconds, he brings it to a halt outside the main entrance of the building. The marines dash out of the armored vehicle and into the complex locking the door to the building behind them.

The dying creature lays on the floor, looking up to the sky, struggling to breathe, its facial expressions impossible to see through the silvery mask it wears, the large 'eyes' of the mask were dark, with no light coming from inside. The part of the mask covering its mouth and nose is almost like a rectangular shaped pig snout, without nose holes and the top of the mask extends to cover the top of its head. Attached to its waist are several skulls, some of them not human but they looked like they were once dangerous creatures, with razor sharp teeth attached to their jaw bones.

Physiologically it is much bigger than a human at least two and a half metres tall and weighing about three hundred pounds. Long, inch thick, black dreadlocks hang from around the mask it wears and each dreadlock has two or three golden pieces of metal circling them, probably for decorative purposes. Its skin is a mottled pale yellow, four pairs of thick abdominal muscles are well defined under its skin, which has now been slightly minced by the Smartgun, and fluorescent green blood spatters its body.

Its forearms are wrapped in two metal devices, one has two jagged shiny blades sticking out of it and the other, whilst slightly bigger, doesn't look like it serves a purpose. Attached its right shoulder was some sort of small cannon like object that faced the same direction as the creatures head. The creature makes a coughing like noise and its chest and head shudder slightly, the shoulder cannon mimics the movements of the creatures head. The creature takes a few throaty breaths and makes a few clicking noises.

Seemingly from thin air, four more masked creatures appear around it with the same electrical flickering, standing over their fallen comrade and look on. The dying creature looks at his comrades and inhales a few more throaty breaths before finally succumbing to its injuries. The other creatures look at each other and then their fallen accomplice. One of them makes a deep growling sound and two of the creatures pick up the deceased and carry it elsewhere.


	6. A Town Meeting?

_There's not much to say at this point, though when i was wrtiting this it felt like a shorter chapter than the others. Though i did manage to expand it from 4 pages to 5 on Word when i did some editing. Hope it turns out good. Enjoy._

**Chapter six**

**A Town Meeting?**

Inside the hospital building Bishop tends to Biggs and Tidus, who lie on beds in one of the med labs. The other marines are not in the room with them, only Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Baird accompany them. Bishop studies Biggs' bleeding waist for a few moments, then, much to Biggs' distress, pulls out a small twin pronged spear, no bigger than his palm, shaped like a 'U' with a metal tail on the end, from just below Biggs' left spare rib, then wraps a band aid on the wound.

Biggs looks at the metal object in Bishops hand, and opens his eyes wide at the vicious looking device. "Bish, what the hell is that?"

"I have no idea, I've never seen anything like it before, it has almost no weight, and analysis of this will have to wait. You got lucky there Biggs, any higher and this would probably have cracked a rib or two and punctured your lung, any lower and it would have hit your left kidney."

Biggs grimaces at the pain "Those bastards are gonna burn nice and slowly when I catch them."

"I wouldn't recommend you go into heavy fighting anytime soon, otherwise you'll make it even worse for you, the wound might even become infected." He looks at Biggs with a serious face; Biggs just looks away with disappointment.

Yuna attends to Tidus who has been shot in his right arm; the single pronged 'tail' of the spear sticks out of his skin whilst the sharp twin pronged end of the spear has embedded itself in his arm.

Bishop, having finished dealing with Biggs walks over to Yuna "Okay Yuna let me deal with this," he studies the wound and the rest of Tidus' arm for a couple of minutes, then looks at the young Blitz star "You got lucky too, the shape of the spear and the angle at which it has struck you has meant that, miraculously enough, your Humerus has fitted, almost like a glove, into the 'U' shape between the two prongs, the bone hasn't been touched, all it needed was a centimeter to the left or right and you'd have a broken arm. Fortunately this is nothing you shouldn't fully recover from in a couple of months, now, I'm going to have to pull this out alright?"

"If you must." He grimaces.

Bishop starts to carefully pull out the spear, making Tidus growl and breathe through his teeth making hissing sounds, his face twisted with pain. After a minute of gentle pulling, Bishop frees the spear from his arm and wraps a bandage around Tidus' arm.

Yuna places a comforting hand on his face and gives him little smile, "Are you going to be okay?"

It's not everyday I get shot with a spear, but I'll deal with it." He smiles back

"Good man," says Bishop "Biggs?"

"I'll be fine; this isn't the first time I've been shot with something."

Baird walks towards the four with a serious look on his face "Are you guys ready to move now? The locating computer is down the hall and through the specimen labs; we'll head there once the others return."

"Yeah I'm good to go sir" says Biggs, Tidus simply nods and gets off of the bed.

Vasquez enters the room and salutes Baird "All doors into the building are now welded shut sir. The other guys are making a more thorough check of the building, nothing is getting in here and if there is anything inside, it isn't getting out. They said that they'll be finished in a few minutes and will meet us here."

"Good at least we are secure from those things for now.

"They definitely weren't human alright? I saw the one I shot, its blood was fluorescent green! Not only that but when I did shoot it, it started to… de-cloak, and it had these crazy electrical bolts flashing over its body. I aint seen no human or fiend that ever looked like that."

Bishop nods "I saw it too, these things can't be fiends, they're too intelligent, and there is nothing in Spira that can shoot things like these," He says, pointing at the two spears. "The craftsmanship of these things is incredibly precise, I can't think of anything we have on this planet that can carve something out of metal with this degree of accuracy, it's incredibly sharp."

Footsteps start echoing down the hallway and Lucil and Beclem's squads enter the room.

Vasquez continues where Bishop left off. "I couldn't see exactly where they were shooting from; either they must have been pretty far away from us or their camouflage is better than we thought."

"Cowards, doing a bit of sniping work on us." Grumbles Maddox

"Hey!" Said Frost indignantly.

"Sorry man."

"Okay," says Baird, taking command of the situation "If you guys are ready we better start locating these civvies and fast, the longer we wait, the less a chance there is of finding them alive, let's get to the communications room, we'll need to go through the specimen labs first, Vasquez you have point."

The group exit the med lab and march on down the hall with Vasquez up front and Beclem to her left, frequently checking his motion tracker; after what had happened back in the previous building, they are not taking any chances.

Like the previous building, the corridors of the hospital are not particularly bright or welcoming, either through lack of power being supplied to the building, or simply a flaw in the design of the structure, either way though, the place was eerie, almost threatening, and there is no doubt in the minds of the soldiers that the situation in which they have managed to find themselves in; being hunted by strange entities, is not helping to shake off this feeling. They reach a door with a sign above it that read 'Specimen Lab' in bold red letters, on a white glowing background.

Beclem presses a few buttons and the door opens, they all step inside and find themselves in a well lit room that is separated into two halves by a large, thick pane of glass and a control operated door. Inside the opposite half are a bed, desks, a few chairs and two rows of three, cylindrical tubes, two of which contain strange spider like organisms. Unbeknownst to the marines, the creatures in the tubes are identical to the organism that had attached itself to John, only these ones are not moving.

Vasquez is the first to enter the room and blinks in surprise at the bizarre animals. "What the heck are those things?"

"Damn those are ugly." Mutters Nadine.

"Got that right." Replies Frost.

The group moves into the room and surround the tubes, except Stone who steps cautiously towards on of the tubes, taking a closer look at the apparently dead creature. Suddenly the animal bursts to life and tries to jump at him through the liquid but is stopped by the glass, but still makes Stone jump back and everyone else laugh. The creature thrashes its tail in the tube, clearly agitated and desperate to get at Stone. Stone himself looks at the creature, slightly disgusted as a fleshy tongue-like tube comes out from what could at best be described as the creature's mouth, and tries again to get through the glass but with no luck. Othello steps close to Stone, smiling.

"Looks like love at first site to me." This draws a snigger from everyone else and a sarcastic smile from Stone. Bishop meanwhile studies a file he has found on the desk,

Baird step over to him "What have you got for us Bishop?"

"One's alive obviously, the other is dead. Apparently the dead one was found, and I quote from the report, 'attached to the face of site topographer John Riker's face, its tail was wrapped around his neck. According to his investigative partner Elsa Mitchell, the tail appeared to tighten its grip around his neck when the creature was touched. When he was returned here the doctors tried to surgically remove it by cutting off its tail, but when they went to make an incision its 'sickly green blood' spurted out onto the table, the floor and the scalpel that had made the cut. Instantly upon contact the liquid began to eat away extremely quickly at the scalpel, the operating table and the floor. After a certain period of time and having eaten its way through several levels below the operating room, the liquid slowed down and eventually stopped. Analysts concluded that its blood was a molecular acid that oxidizes when in contact with the air, gradually neutralizing it. After that incident the doctors stopped surgery and put him into quarantine, after 6 hours of containment, the creature, all by itself came off and died after approximately two minutes. An hour or so later John was awake, if a little woozy, but quickly recovered. After a couple of hours and some examinations he was cleared to go. Ten hours after the creature detached itself from him, John was eating dinner with a number of others, when he started convulsing, choking and clutching his chest. He started to go into what looked like seizures and a number of people needed to restrain him, all the while he was yelling in obvious agony. After approximately thirty seconds after the convulsions started, the center of his chest started bleeding, and an odd, faint crunching noise was heard. Then his rib cage apparently burst open, his shirt along with it, blood went everywhere and this snake like creature came out of his chest. The doctor who was there at the time stopped anyone from touching it for fear of contamination. This apparently gave it the opportunity to escape; they never saw the creature after that and the entire base was put on maximum alert, but the animal was never found. According to Elsa the cave that was discovered some distance from here, contained hundreds of these eggs and in each one of these eggs resided one of these 'face huggers', apparently during a preliminary investigation of the cave, John got close to one of the eggs, it hatched and this thing attached itself to his face. When he was brought back here, the resident authorities decided to send another team to obtain a specimen. They succeeded after a bit of a struggle with one of them and brought it here, they tried to sedate it but the syringes kept melting, it seems that their blood is highly pressurized so that if they are wounded their attacker would get covered in acid, after several attempts to sedate it they gave up and put it in this store. The doctor then writes here that he intends to autopsy the dead one. But that last entry about wanting to do the autopsy is the last one, it seems he never got a chance to do it."

Baird looks at the doctor with concern, knowing they have clearly stumbled on something greater than just the hunters that wait outside for them; a new mystery was beginning to unfold. "Well it seems obvious that whatever that 'facehugger' is, it is obviously designed to grab onto the face of its victim, keep the person alive for so long, during which it lays some sort of egg or embryo in the chest of that person then once it has accomplished that, it dies as it has fulfilled its purpose in finding a host for the embryo, then the embryo develops into that… that… 'chestburster' thing." He looks at Bishop who nods in agreement.

"Well that all makes sense, but to what end? That 'chestburster' as you called it must do more than just slither around, otherwise its existence is pointless; something that size wouldn't stand much of a chance against the fiends that exist in Spira, even with that acid blood, such a species would have been wiped out before long, there must be something more to it than that.

"Well whatever that snake was there's no way it could possibly have taken all of the people here; it must have been those things we saw out there." says Yuna.

Baird nods "I agree, but let's stay sharp for any of these things that might have decided to hang around; we never know, there might be more of them, let's get to the computer room."

The group resumes their movement to the computer room; they exit the specimen holding area of the room and go through a door on their left. The room they enter contains computer terminals, most of which are still active and cover the majority of the walls. In the center of the room is a computer terminal similar to the one the group had looked at in the previous building, they give the room a quick look over, then gather round the large, horizontal screen.

"Othello, start a search for any human life signs." Orders Baird, Othello opens up a panel below the screen and attaches a few wires to his little hand held computer and works his magic. The computer screen starts scanning the Macalania area. The map on the screen looks more like a diagram of the area, as opposed to a proper map. The screen suddenly flashes a few times and makes a beeping noise, Othello cuts the noise and everyone looks at the screen. The map shows two large buildings, one of which shows an accumulation of white dots that flash regularly.

"Alright here we go, that's quite a few survivors there, I don't know how many, though I'm pretty certain that that's not all of them, there were hundreds working in this city, but at least it's a start." Says Baird

"They all seem to be in sub level 3 of the reactor control station, I wonder what they're doing down there?" ponders Nadine

"Looks like a damn town meeting down there." remarks Maddox.

"Well there are a lot of survivors down there; we'd better not hang around here, I suggest we get over there using the APC seeing as there is about three hundred metres of open area, if we go on foot we will be sitting ducks for those… things. I suggest we go by the back entrance as well; there are fewer advantageous firing positions for them to take. Frost, you can remote pilot the APC to this exit here, right?"

"I can, just give me a moment to set up the receiver and the remote controls."

Frost takes off his back pack and goes about his task; he sets up an aerial and connects it to a small computer, which has several directional buttons on the keyboard. As he does this, Tidus walks up to him.

"How does this work?"

Well, inside this little computer here is a small remote device that once activated, automatically directs itself into a computer relay that is constantly turned on, inside the APC, once the link is made I can control the APC from a distance of up to 30 kilometers away. This little monitor here is linked up to a high resolution video camera in the front of the APC, so I can see where I'm steering."

"Cool." Murmurs an impressed Tidus

"That is an excellent word to describe it." He stands up and grabs the attention of Baird, "Okay its set up and ready to roll."

"Do it, Frost"

Frost obeys and places the computer on the glowing map, touches a green button on the computer keyboard and a red sentence on the computer screen lights up saying 'APC engine activated' Frost starts to use the arrow keys on the computer keyboard to steer the APC, the little computer screen shows the front of the APC moving in accordance to Frost's use of the directional arrows in the center of the key board. He skillfully steers it until he sees that he has guided it almost perfectly inline with the back entrance of the hospital.

He gives a small accomplished smile "Okay APC is in place, let's move before those things get out there and wait for us."

"You heard the man let's move out, Vasquez you have point." Barks Baird.

The group proceeds out of the room and heads swiftly down the dark hall, their intended exit lay about 50 metres away.

Vasquez glances over to Beclem, who has his tracker held out in front of him "Talk to me Beclem."

"I'm seeing all clear, let's just keep moving."

They reach the exit and Maddox stands next to Vasquez, their ludicrously powerful guns aimed at the door, which had recently been welded shut.

"Othello, use a plasma welding torch to reopen that door." Orders Baird, Othello moves towards the door and gets out a small, hand held device that resembles a small gun, he presses it to the top of where the two parts of the door meet and presses the 'trigger'. Instantly sparks fly out from where the torch makes contact with the metal and a fierce hissing noise echoes in the corridor, Othello works his way from the top to the bottom with surprising speed, showing off the effectiveness of the plasma welder. He reaches the bottom and steps over to the control panel, he presses a few buttons and the door opens, revealing only the side door of the APC and bad weather.

"Alright, Vasquez and Maddox go open the APC, the rest of you stay here, once they open it and get inside, you run like hell you understand?"

"Yes sir." Comes the hushed reply from everyone.

Vasquez takes a deep breath and then makes a dash for the APC, quickly followed up by Maddox, nothing happens to them, no shots are fired, no blades are drawn, there is just the sound of the wind and pitter patter of the rain, but that doesn't slow the two gunners down, Vasquez proceeds to open the APC's door as Maddox points his Smartgun in every conceivable direction, ready to open up on anything that it picks up. Vasquez unlocks the door, slides it open and jumps inside, Maddox quickly follows suite. Seeing the two soldiers get inside everyone else dashes outside, their guns sweeping the area as they go, ready for their stalkers, should they decide to make an appearance, but still nothing. They jump inside and Tidus, the last one in, shuts the door with a slam and they all take the seats that they had sat in during the flight into the city, Baird guns the engine and they drive off towards the control complex of the reactor.


	7. Into the Lions Den

**Chapter seven**

**Into the Lions den**

The APC purrs to a halt next to a large doorway, which leads into the control complex, the rain has stopped pouring now and the wind has stopped howling. The ceasing of the two weather elements casts a ghostly silence around the area.

Inside the APC Baird addresses the other marines, "Alright guys you know the drill, keep sharp, watch out for those cloaked freaks, but watch your fire and check your targets too, remember we're looking for civvies in here."

Lucil puts up her hand to speak "Sir what do we do once we've located them, we can't bring them all into the APC, there's too many of them."

"Once you have found them you bring them up onto this level, but keep them in the building just inside the entrance and secure your position, I suggest you shut the doors too. Once you have found them and secured yourselves I will radio Janus for immediate dust off of civilians."

"And what about the rest of us?" asks Elma

"We resume, or pursue if you like, our original mission. We must find out who and where these things are and eliminate them. But civilians are our top priority for now, are we all clear on this?"

"Yes sir!" was the unanimous response.

"Good, now since these guys here have seen how we work, they will be joining the team."

Some of the soldiers groan, Maddox and Vasquez look at each other disdainfully.

"Hey enough of that, you are professional soldiers trained to handle any situation including this one, deal with it. Now since we only have one location to go to I'm combining the two squads together, you'll have safety in numbers that way. Now once you get out of this cozy little vehicle you will notice a door nearby, through that is a corridor, which, twenty meters down or so, has a stair case that you need to use to get to the floor on which the civilians are. You need to get down to sub level three, take the door that is immediately to your right when you reach that level, travel about 20 metres down that corridor and turn left, go down there about 15 metres then take a right, there should be another 30 metres before you reach their location. You got all that? I will be in constant radio contact to Lucil and Beclem; they will relay the necessary stuff to you alright?"

"Yes sir."

Yuna taps Baird on the shoulder, drawing his attention "Uh, Baird?"

"Yes?"

"I think Tidus should stay here after that shot earlier."

"Well… If you're sure."

"Yuna I'll be fine, really there's no…"

"You stay here you got me?" the firmness in Yuna's voice shuts Tidus up immediately, everyone else looks at her surprised, some of them even looked slightly impressed, Tidus just blinks a few times.

"Uh, yes ma'am."

"Good."

Baird clears his throat to gain everyone's attention, "Alright, Tidus you stay here, the rest of you move it."

Vasquez and Maddox jump to their feet, Smartguns in hand and stand in front of the door of the APC, Stone opens up the door and they point their guns to the outside, which was gray and ominous. The two Smart gunners look at each other give a little nod, Maddox steps out first and is quickly followed by Vasquez, the other marines including Yuna, Rikku and Paine, step outside too. Maddox and Lucil take the front of the group with Vasquez and Beclem bringing up the rear, once again moving backwards.

They reach the door and open it up with a little help from Stone's bypass kit, then proceed down the empty, dank looking corridor, a pin could have been heard dropping as they proceeded in total silence.

Inside the APC Tidus, Baird, Frost and Bishop observe the marines on their respective cameras; they watch them travel down the aforementioned stairs. As they go deeper and deeper into the building some of the monitors flicker.

"Lucil, Beclem I'm getting interference on the monitors here."

"It's probably the steel structure sir; these types of places have a tendency to screw things up on the monitors."

"Okay, it seems to be adjusting itself now. How are the motion trackers going?"

"We're not reading anything, no movement anywhere."

"Keep going, you will probably notice something in the end."

The group turn left down the corridor as instructed and stop in amazement, the walls, ceiling and floor of the corridor are covered with the same dark substance in the same 'rib cage' pattern as the ill fated John had encountered in the cave.

Beclem steps forward to take a closer look at the substance "You seeing this, Baird?"

"Yeah I see it. Can you stand on it?"

Beclem walks onto the strange substance.

"Seems pretty solid to me." he jumps up and down a few times.

"Yup I don't think this is going anywhere. I just wish we knew what the heck it is; this job just gets crazier and crazier as we go along."

"Well if it can be walked on then keep going, just watch your step."

The group proceeds to walk on the strange substance, Nadine snaps off a small piece of the substance and looks at it.

"It looks like some sort of secreted resin."

"Yeah, but secreted from what?" asks Stone who looks at the icicle-like piece.

"Nobody touches a thing alright?" says Beclem sternly.

Dunya drops the piece of resin as they reach the right turn off that Baird had instructed them to go down.

Biggs puffs his cheeks "Damn, it's roasting down here. Whatever this stuff is, it must have amazing insulation properties."

"Ha, maybe we could take it all and start a business selling the stuff!" chuckles Othello.

"Knock it off Othello." scolds Lucil.

Baird's voice sounds out in Lucil and Beclem's ear pieces "Okay the colonists should be about 25 metres from where your location, are you seeing anything on your motion trackers?"

"No sir, we still have nothing on screen."

"Weird. But keep going, you're only a few meters from the first of the survivors."

"Yes sir."

The Marines, with Vasquez in front, enter the room; she stops and looks around her then moves forward slowly allowing the others to file in. The walls are covered with a similar resin to what covers the hallways, but this substance is more crystalline. In the centre of the room is a stairwell surrounded by bars that reach waist height.

Othello walks down the room for a couple of steps and then does a double take at the wall on his left, his eyes widen with fear; suspended at his eye level are a pair of human feet, still with their boots on. He slowly looks up with increasing horror at the owner of the feet. The person is a mess; his skin is almost white and his hair is damp and covered with the crystalline substance, he has no visible wounds, but his head droops to his chest in unconsciousness.

"Sweet mother of machina." Othello whispers to himself.

Stone and Vasquez themselves notice the suspended body and look on in their own horror, as they move further into the room it becomes apparent to the rest of the marines that this man is not the only one plastered to the walls. As they move deeper into the room the scale of this new problem quickly grows to prominence, to the marines however it is like looking at a gallery of horror as they witness body upon body fastened to the walls by the tough resin.

"Can anyone here tell me what in Yevon's name happened here? This is mental; they've been stuck to the walls or something." Hisses Maddox.

"They don't look alive." Says Elma.

"They have to be otherwise they wouldn't show up on the computer earlier. Sir are you getting all this?" asks Beclem.

"Yeah I see it. Check for survivors; see if any have a pulse or anything. Can you still see no movement?"

"Negative sir, there's nothing."

Nadine finds a body that is not fastened too high for her to touch their head, she walks up to the body; a woman, Nadine lifts up her drooped head, revealing the victim to be none other than Elsa. Her closed eyes seem lifeless, and Nadine goes in for a slightly closer look, as she gets within inches of the apparently unconscious woman she suddenly opens her eyes, which takes Nadine by surprise that jumps back in surprise.

"Over here quick, we've got a live one!"

She steps back towards Elsa.

"Stay with me, it's alright, your going to be okay, stay calm."

Elsa opens her mouth to speak, she sounds like she is being strangled "Please, k, kill me. Kill me." Suddenly she starts shaking and coughing violently.

"She's convulsing, damn it we need a medic here!" shouts out Nadine.

An odd crunching and cracking noise emanates from Elsa's abdomen, then a burst of blood appears from Elsa's chest and she yelps in pain, blood pours from the side of her mouth, a strange snake like creature then violently bursts out from her chest, covered in blood and starts screeching madly. Elsa's screaming stops and her eyes roll up into their sockets, and her head collapses down again.

Nadine jumps back and grabs Biggs, "Biggs, fry it!"

Biggs steps forward and unleashes a jet of flame, engulfing the creature, which begins screeching and writhing about, still partially inside Elsa's chest. Biggs unleashes another fiery stream and the creature slows down its writhing, then stops altogether and collapses in the all consuming flames. Silence descends into the room again, save for the noise of the burning corpses; everyone looks around them alert for anything.

Inside an air vent, leading to the room the marines stand in, a strange looking object with no discernable shape suddenly comes to life and starts moving with a strange elegant grace. Inside another air vent another object, similar to the other one, comes to life, then another, and another.

Beclem and Lucil's motion trackers suddenly start beeping frantically; they study their trackers, whilst the other marines suddenly become aware of an odd, faint hissing noise coming from all around the group.

"We've got movement!" calls out Beclem.

"Where? Gimme a direction." Orders Vasquez.

"Uh, the tracker can't lock in!" replies Beclem in a worried voice, his motion tracker has multiple white dots all over it and with each pulse of the tracker they get closer to the marines.

"Talk to me Beclem!" growls Vasquez.

"I've got multiple signals! They're closing!"

Baird's voice crackles over in Lucil and Beclem's ears "What's happening you two? We can't see anything up here!"

"I have signals, I have readings in front and behind!" calls out Lucil to anyone listening.

"Where man? I can't see squat!" replies Othello.

"He's right there's nothing back here!" says Stone.

Beclem begins looking around himself frantically "Look I'm telling you there's something moving here and it aint us!"

Paine, her eyes darting all over the place, unwittingly backs into Yuna and Rikku who are backing up in the opposite direction, as they lightly impact on eat other they flinch then turn around quickly and find themselves pointing their weapons at each other. Realizing that they were mistaken, they breathe a quick sigh of relief then get back to looking for the sources of the movement.

Beclem by now is turning in all directions frantically trying to pinpoint at least one point of movement to its source "The tracker's off scale, they're all around us man, geez!"

Othello curls his lips slightly "What is all around us, I can't see anything moving!" with his flamethrower ready, he slowly turns his back to the wall behind him. The section of wall that he had been looking straight at starts to move, almost as if it were unfolding, revealing a horrific creature with sharp, glistening teeth and claws, it grabs Othello from behind and pulls him up, he shouts and kicks wildly, and instinctively pulls the trigger of his flamethrower, Stone turns around and receives a sheet of fire in his face and body. He flails about, screams and without being able to see where he is going he runs into the safety bars of the stair well and topples head first down the shaft. Suddenly chaos and panic descends on the whole room as the marines, caught completely unawares, try to comprehend what has just happened in the few short seconds.

"What the heck just happened?" shouts out Maddox.

"Othello's vanished and Stone got flamed, they're gone!" shouts out Nadine.

She turns around franticly and pins herself up against a wall, above her head another creature suddenly begin to stir and silently moves down to her, it grabs her when none of the other marines are looking and she screams as the inhuman creature hoists her upwards by her shoulders with incredible ease.

Throwing caution to the wind, Vasquez cocks her smart gun.

"LET'S ROCK!" she depresses the trigger of her gun and starts shooting in a semi circle in front of her, despite the fact that her weapon had not locked onto anything. The deep throaty booming of her gun rings out into the room, Maddox takes the hint and opens fire too. The group instinctively starts to fall back to the entrance with Lucil in front who is clutching one of her ears trying to listen to what Baird is saying.

In the APC, Baird is now sweating and trying to control his words as he gives Lucil and Beclem their orders.

"…I said lay off of the suppressing fire and fall back to the APC by squads."

"Suppressing fire what? Vasquez, Maddox stop firing, damn it! Sir! Say again sir, say again." Shouts Lucil

Baird isn't given a chance to reply to her, Lucil is grabbed from behind and pulled up towards the ceiling like Othello and Nadine, kicking and screaming, her gun fires instinctively.

Beclem spins around to find Lucil has gone without a trace "Where's Lucil? Where's Lucil!"

Biggs grabs Beclem on the shoulder "We gotta get outta here! They're coming through the walls! They're coming through the damn walls!"

Inside the APC, Baird is in total panic mode and is unable to speak, only murmur. Through Biggs' camera Tidus watches as Campbell shoots at something off the screen and an inhuman screech sounds out. Biggs runs up to Beclem, his face a vision of terror "Lucil's gone! Let's get the heck outta here!"

Lucil, Othello, Nadine and Stone's camera monitors are offline and only show static but the life sign read outs of Othello, Nadine and Lucil show that they are still alive. Tidus grabs onto Baird.

"Do something Baird!" but he gets no response from the brain locked lieutenant.

Back in among the chaos, Beclem takes charge of the situation "Fall back! Fall back! Marines we are leaving!"

Rikku is already ahead of the group, the rest follow but she is a good 10 metres ahead, pulse rifle in hand she dashes round a corner, runs down the corridor then turns another corner towards the stairs, reaching them she climbs them faster than she ever thought possible.

Paine and Yuna reach the bottom of the stairs but decide to wait a moment for the other marines to catch up, who have only just turned the corner that leads to the stairs with Vasquez and Rykov bringing up the rears of the group, from where they stand Yuna and Paine listen to their bursts of gunfire and the horrible screeches that follow each burst. Through the targeting computer of their Smartguns, Vasquez and Maddox watch the horrific creatures crawl after them on two legs and on all fours, some of them were even crawling on the ceiling, the two marines do not hesitate to pull their triggers as each animal lines up into their sites, acidic blood splashes every where with each bullet hole, fortunately for the marines they are too far away to be hit by the splatters.

Rikku reaches the top of the stairs and runs for the exit, hurtling outside she begins to run towards the APC, she stops in her tracks as she hears an odd whooshing noise followed by a metallic clanking noise over to her right, she looks towards the source of the noise. Embedded in the ground is a small circular object with metallic 'wings' she is about to take a closer look when she hears a bleeping noise that gets quicker and quicker over time. Without a second thought she runs as fast as she can, away from the object, she gets only ten meters or so when the object explodes violently, the power of the explosion sends her flying away from the APC. She sprawls on the floor like a rag doll; her momentum carries her along the floor for a number of meters before she stops and lies on the floor motionless, a trickle of blood works its way down her forehead.

The marines as a group dash out of the door way and into the APC, but Vasquez and Maddox still trail by a few meters, having to move slower than the rest, due to the increased size of their guns.

As the marines file into the APC a metal ceiling panel nearby begins to bend and buckle as something on the other side batters its way through. With a last final thud, the panel breaks off and two of the creatures crawl out of the space, and fall on their feet to the floor.

Vasquez reaches the outside of the building and waits by the door for Maddox who's a few steps behind, as he gets into the door way Vasquez starts to move further backwards to the APC and fails to notice one of the creatures, which stealthily appears from out of the front of the APC, moving towards Maddox.

As he exits the building, still focused on the doorway the creature begins to move quickly to the unsuspecting marine. Vasquez sees it first and turns her gun on it and shoots, the creature explodes with a screech and Maddox is showered in acid and the unfortunate marine wails in agony as the fast acting liquid eats away at his flesh, unable to move through sheer pain he collapses to the floor.

"NO!" screams Vasquez, as she watches her dying partner, literally melt away.

Maddox turns with the last of his life and shouts at Vasquez through unrecognizable lips "Get out of here, go now!"

Vasquez is seized by some of the men and is reluctantly pulled back into the APC.

"Get us out of here now!" shouts Beclem to Frost.

The sniper doesn't ask questions and reverses the APC incredibly quickly out of the hallway and does a reverse handbrake turn once they get out into the open, throwing everyone across the room, some of the heavier equipment, stored in the shelves falls onto Baird knocking him out.

Suddenly, to Frost's surprise the second creature appears on the small windscreen of the APC and smashes the glass. Without thinking Frost slams on the breaks, throwing the surprised animal, Frost doesn't think twice and accelerates into the alien crushing its body underneath the wheels.

Thinking they are out of harms way for the moment, the group try to assess themselves and those around them. Yuna starts to look around frantically.

"Where's Rikku!"

She panics and starts throwing equipment around thinking she might have been buried under the boxes and weapons. Failing to locate her cousin in the APC the horrible truth dawns on her.

"Rikku's still back there? No, no, we have to go get her back! Rikku!" hysterically she grabs for the door to open it but is held back by Paine and Elma, both visibly upset too. After several moments of struggling Yuna slowly stops and remains motionless, a tear trickles down her right eye as she realizes the futility of going back for Rikku.

Paine speaks trying desperately to keep herself composed "We can't go back Yuna, she will have been captured by those things. Even if we did get to her and bring her back she'll have one of those things on her, there would be nothing we could do for her after that… I'm so sorry Yuna," she sniffles, her own eyes welling up with tears "I'm so sorry."

Yuna collapses to the floor of the APC and falls apart, crying her eyes out for the loss of her beloved cousin. A tearful Tidus moves over to her and puts his arms around her, and holds her head tightly to his shoulder, he looks at a dejected Paine who herself has broken her emotionless shell and is shedding tears. The APC stops outside the hospital, but no one tries to leave.


	8. In Over Their Heads

_At last chapter 8 is done, written and edited to the best of my abilities, i hope my eyes (useless as they are) managed to pick up everything. I don't think there is much to say about this, oh except that anything in italics (not this paragraph obviously) is a persons thoughts, not spoken words. Enjoy.R+R please._

**Chapter eight**

**In over their heads**

Across on the other side of the control complex is a sight of chaos; it seems it is not just the marines who disturbed the alien nest. Two of the hulking stalkers back away from another entrance of the complex, firing luminous blue balls of plasma as fast as they can at the alien creatures, who pour out of the partially open doorway. The bottleneck created by the door only allows the voracious animals to come through in a trickle, slow enough to allow their bipedal quarry to simply shoot them as they come without them gaining any ground on the retreating creatures.

Suddenly the aliens stop flowing through the gap in the door; the predators keep a finger held above one of the red square buttons on their left wrist computer, ready to resume firing if the brutes return. Through the gap in the doorway the two brothers in arms notice some fevered activity, followed by deep screeching; not the same sound that the aliens had been making. Repeated banging noises emanate from the partially open doorway, which instantly start to bend and buckle outwards with each bang.

Through their masks the two predators look at each other in amazement, and for the first time in their lives, fear. With two final booming impacts the two halves of the door collapse, revealing the source of the impacts. In the door way, standing even taller than the hunters, are two fearsome monsters, which, unlike their smaller brethren, do not have heads shaped like a curved cylinders, these creatures have long, wide, hardened crests.

The two creatures roar at the startled predators and dash towards them on all fours. The predators stand their ground and resume their firing, however to their horror their plasma balls impact on the larger creatures' heads and have no effect on them, the armored heads being able to withstand the small explosions. The Praetorians roar at the predators as they charge, their heads held down low ready to ram them, their speed is incredible for animals their size. As they close in, the hunters unclip from their sides, long metal spears with sharp, jagged, ornate designs on each end.

The second the praetorians are within striking distance they swing their spears at their respective attackers, but all they do is create sparks as each of their spears scrapes along the hardened shell of the praetorian's heads. Without even slowing down, the praetorians ram right into the two hunters, sending them both hurtling backwards. No longer held back by the door, the horde of aliens gushes out of the building, rapidly catching up to the floored predators.

As they get back to their feet the predators are quickly surrounded by the angry mob, one of whom has lost his spear and is at the mercy of the frenzied creatures. They do not hesitate and jump at him, quickly overpowering him, fluorescent green blood and fleshy masses fly in every direction. The other predator however has managed to keep a hold of his spear and swings it with great skill at aliens all around him, keeping them at bay. However his brave efforts to save his own skin are futile as he cuts it down one alien that gets too close and acid blood splashes over his mask and quickly melts it away, along with small patches of his face, the burning sensation makes the predator flinch, a moment which is taken advantage of by one of the praetorians who grabs the predator by its arms and hoists it up a foot off the ground to just below the praetorians head who looks down on its prey.

Its horrific jaws open with a hiss exposing the secondary jaws, ready to strike. Preferring to look straight at the face of death, the predator looks up at the praetorian and roars at it as the piston like jaws shoot out and smashes into the predator's skull with a loud crunching noise, the hunter's body flinches then goes limp. The praetorian drops the body, hisses and retreats back to the hive with the other praetorian and aliens.

Inside the APC everyone still looks miserable; Yuna, Paine and Tidus are silent, their eyes blood shot and their cheeks moist with shed tears. The other marines talk quietly amongst themselves.

"What the hell were those things?" murmurs Elma "It doesn't make sense, they came out of nowhere. The motion trackers were silent then they start appearing no less than 15 metres all around us."

"They weren't fiends that's for sure: They didn't vanish into pyreflies," points out Beclem "They were strong too, they must have been; they took Lucil, Othello and Nadine with no effort. Who knows where they took them."

"Well it's obvious to me what those things are: dead meat man that's what they are, we aint gonna let them get away with that." growls Biggs.

"Hey I don't want to rain on your parade but we just got our asses kicked pal, we aint just gonna waltz back in there and show them what we're made of. How can we shoot them if we don't see them coming? You got an answer to that?"

Vasquez gets up and opens a compartment on the wall of the APC and pulls out a couple of grey metal cylinders "Alright, we've got 20 canisters of CN20, I say we roll in there and nerve gas the whole damn nest."

"It's a good idea but we don't know if it will work, we can't really do anything beyond shooting them unless we know more about them." Replies Bishop

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious that they are using people as hosts for those things that come out of your chest, and that these things then grow into those bigger freaks. But in order to get one of those 'chest bursting' things you need one of those 'facerapers'. We read a report of only one of them being attached to a persons face. There were no indications that there were more." says Elma.

"Maybe the one that came out of that man's chest and was lost managed to escape, grow, and then find a way to make more of those creatures, or something." Speaks up Yuna, having cleared her mind and tears.

Tidus nods "I think you're right, it makes sense at least… Damn it, this is Shoopuf shit. We came here to find and eliminate invisible murderers and now look."

"We need to look at the bigger picture here. This is more than just about us, this is about the whole of Spira, if those things get out of Macalania then we could be looking at thousands of lives being lost." points out Paine.

"Let's make sure it doesn't come to that." Replies Tidus.

"Well then we'd better think of a way. And I think whatever we choose to do it will mean wiping out this entire area, we have to be thorough; nothing can be allowed to survive." says Beclem.

Silence once again descends on the group; most look at their feet for inspiration. Beclem's eyes suddenly light up and look up at the group. "I have an idea, but you're probably not going to like it."

"What?" asks Yuna.

"Well before I signed up for the marines I was working with a number of Youth League, Machine Faction, and New Yevon scientists and they had been doing weapons research of various forms. Our latest advancement was an incredibly powerful device called the apocalypse bomb that creates a swirling vortex of energy that is capable of annihilating almost anything in range; it's like a giant flare spell and is capable of covering a large area, nearly the size of Macalania. When I joined the corp I found out that these devices had been assigned as part of a standard Dropship's payload of warheads. If we radio Janus to pick us up and fire the bomb at this site I guarantee you there will be nothing left here alive at all, and we will be out of here."

"I smell a 'but' on the end of this." Mutters Paine.

"Correct. The only problem with using this weapon is that, depending on how the reactor building is destroyed, there is a chance that the Ultima reactor will explode as well, now this will mean that a larger area will be covered by the explosion, though I don't think that the area covered would be much greater. The real problem will be the stagnant Ultima energy in the area; it will mean that Macalania will be a pretty quiet neighborhood for a long time."

"After what we have seen I don't think that anyone would want to come back here even if they could." says Tidus.

Yuna looks at him with a sad pair of eyes "Perhaps. It just seems wrong that's all; to erase this place, we lost good friends here and relations. Rikku, Lucil, not to mention your comrades, they won't even get to be sent."

Tidus puts a consoling arm around Yuna "I don't think we have much of a choice here Yuna. Rikku and Lucil always tried to do what was right for Spira, and I think they both would want us to do what is necessary right now."

A tear falls down Yuna's cheek and she slowly concedes and nods.

Beclem gets up and walks to the control console Baird had previously occupied and unhooks the radio.

"Janus, you copy?"

"Copy Beclem, Wedge and I were beginning to wonder what was going on over there."

"Yeah well there is a lot we need to up date you with. But right now we need immediate dust off and prep the Dropship for an Apocalypse strike.

"What? Under whose authority?"

"For now it will be mine, but just do it, don't ask questions."

"Rodger Beclem, Janus out."

Beclem replaces the radio. "Well I guess that's it. We'd better move now. Farrow can tell where we are on radar so let's get into the open so she can set down. Frosty you're driving."

Janus sits in the pilot's seat of the immobile Dropship, waiting for Wedge to return to the cockpit. Lights on the dashboard of the Dropship glow while others blink. She inhales deeply and sighs at the prospect of unleashing a weapon as powerful as the Apocalypse bomb on Macalania.

"_Something big must be going down over there. I wonder if everyone is alright. Why would Beclem be giving me the order to prep for this kind of strike and not Baird?"_ She sighs and rubs her eyes "Wedge what is taking you so long to do?" she mutters to herself. Impatiently she flips a switch on the dash board and raises her voice in the cockpit. "Wedge, get your ass up here they need us there now!"

Through his microphone Wedge hears Janus' orders and jogs onto the ramp of the Dropship. He starts up the ramp and puts his hand one of the ramp railings, winces and lifts up his hand, which is now covered in slimy clear goo that stretches as he pulls his hand up.

"Hold on a second there's something…"

"Just get up here."

"Alright, ramp closing."

He presses a button and the ramp quickly rises, moments later the Dropship begins to take off.

The marines have parked the APC just on the outer edge of the city, no less than fifty meters from the nearest building- an apartment block, and are standing outside with Baird on a stretcher 10 meters or so from the APC watching the Dropship approach.

Janus sits alone in the cockpit and taps on her microphone in frustration.

"Wedge...? Damn it."

There is a mechanical hum as the door behind her opens and she starts to turn around.

"Well where the fu…"

She stares in horror at the alien standing in the doorway, already preparing its secondary jaws for attack. Janus goes for her gun at her side as the alien hisses and moves in at her. Outside of the Dropship's cockpit, Janus' arms flail wildly and the windscreen is splashed with blood.

The marines look on as they watch the Dropship start to pitch and yaw randomly in the air. Instantly realizing that something was very wrong they dash and dive as far out of the way as possible as the Dropship comes crashing to the ground, slides and collides with the APC, in an explosion of metal and flame.

Mentally stunned the marines get to their feet rather shakily and look at the carnage; most of them have a look of dismay, some even downright panic.

Campbell wanders around aimlessly, aghast at this new crises, and talks to one in particular "Oh man, this is it. Its game over man its game over! What are we gonna do now huh? What are we gonna do! We're screwed man!"

Beclem grabs a hold of his shirt "Campbell shut up, we're gonna go back to the hospital and we're gonna review our situation and plans there. But before we do that we're going need to salvage what we can from the APC and the Dropship, if we can. Remember most of the equipment is held in bullet proof boxes; they could have survived the impact and explosion."

Everyone gathers themselves up and moves towards the wreckage, Elma and Frosty pick up the stretcher holding Baird and follow. The clouds in the sky begin to dissipate and reveal a glowing full moon, a beacon of light in a darkening land.


	9. A New Ally

_Well, two chapters in less than a week, go me! Just a few things that should be mentioned, there is a part of this that explains the nature of Predators and why they do what they do. There isn't an excessive amount but the information that i have written about is widely acknowledged by mostpredator fans / fanatics such as myself to be accurate, re, their belief in 'honour'. Also, words in italics are thoughts. Enjoy. R+R please._

**Chapter nine**

**A New Ally**

The still form of Rikku lies on the floor where she landed after the explosion. There is no evidence of the alien creatures or the Predators, and a fine plume of smoke slowly emanates from the exit where she had come from. Her forehead has a cut on it and her back has several lacerations from when she turned away from the explosion.

Her chest rises and falls very slightly from light, shallow breaths. Her finger twitches, another twitch, then she inhales sharply and coughs several times. Slowly she opens her eyes, dazed and confused. She winces at the pain running all over her body and slowly tries to get up, but in her weakness her effort fails and she flops back to the floor.

Weakly she rolls herself onto her back and looks up at the ceiling and remains motionless, thinking about how to resolve her situation. She taps the side pouch on her belt with her right hand and her eyes light up slightly. Unclipping the bag, she removes a small clear gourd containing a fluorescent blue liquid and gives a weak smile.

"This is why we wear our own kit and no one else's" she murmurs. She opens up the small bottle and slowly drinks its contents. Her wounds suddenly start glowing sky blue and slowly, the skin on her head and back closes up, leaving only dried blood stains where the wound used to be. Feeling somewhat revitalized Rikku sits up.

"_My last potion, huh, chance favours the prepared mind"_ Slowly her situation dawns on her and she looks around herself nervously, having remembered the situation she had been in earlier. She spots her pulse rifle and gets up and jogs to it, as she does so, a wave of lightheadedness hits her and she stumbles.

"_Guess I needed a little more potion than that"_ she thinks as she steadies herself.

Reaching the pulse rifle she picks it up and points it in all directions looking for anything that isn't human. The years of fighting fiends had taught her to have a sharp eye and she saw that there is nothing here to challenge her. The aliens have retreated since the marines left, how they had missed her she didn't fully understand.

"_Maybe they thought I was dead."_ She muses.

She doesn't stay around for long though and starts towards the exit, she gasps as she spies the corpse of the unfortunate Maddox; most of his face has now been completely eaten away by the acidic blood. She looks away, saddened and horrified.

"_Oh god, I hope Yunie and the others are alright."_ She hopes to herself.

Realizing that if she stays here then there is no way she is going to be found by the others, but there was a great chance of her being found by the other creatures, both species, she steps up the pace to the opening of the large passage.

"_Okay Rikku, it's only a few hundred metres to the hospital, you can make it on foot if you run. Better hope those invisible things aren't out there waiting."_

Rikku reaches the opening and looks around, pulse rifle held out in front of her. She edges out, looking around her all the time.

The translucent form, standing a fair distance above Rikku, looks down on her glowing form through its thermal vision. The creature zooms in on the dark blue coloured pulse rifle then zooms out again. The Predator suddenly jumps down to the floor landing behind a startled Rikku. She spins around to see the translucent shape of the predator and swings her rifle to align it with the creature, but the predator knocks it away from her with its right arm, and follows through with a punch from its left arm to her stomach. Rikku sees the blow coming, giving her just enough time to ready herself for the impact, which sends her flying. She hits the muddy ground with a thud, a good 5 metres away from the predator. She clutches her stomach and winces at the pain, had she not been ready for the blow, she would have been severely winded.

She looks back at her assailant who is now making some strange beeping noises. Electrical sparks suddenly start flashing over the creature's body and it uncloaks. She stares at it, the mask it wears, the long, thick, black dreadlocks and the incredibly muscular body. It stood more than a metre taller than her and she is over one and a half meters tall. Compared to this hulk she was a midget.

In her mind Rikku's years of fighting experience told her that something like this was not going to be very agile, fought correctly, this thing could be beaten. She knew she could probably out maneuver it and strike a killing blow. She gets up off the floor and unclips her two daggers. The predator curls its right hand into a fist, and out of it's right arm band shoot its wrist blades with a metallic 'zing' and advances on her, Rikku readies herself.

Then when it is only a couple of steps away from her it abruptly stops and just stands there. Rikku looks at it suspiciously, and then she hears it, the horribly familiar hissing noise she had heard in the control center, coming from behind her. She spins around to find herself staring into the face of an alien that had snuck up behind her. She freezes, having never seen anything quite as terrifying as this.

The animal curls back its lips and opens its mouth to reveal its dreaded second set of jaws and levels itself with Rikku's forehead. Rikku snaps out of her fear and side steps just as the jaws shoot out, missing her by inches. The alien turns to her to try again. Instinctively and without thought she puts all her strength into one of her blades and goes right for the alien's comparatively thin neck. The sharp blade goes clean through it and the creature's head falls off. Rikku reacts quickly to the acid blood that shoots out of the dying creature's neck and makes a big backwards jump, a splatter of acid hits the ground missing her feet by inches. Eventually the alien's body stops writhing around and lays still. Looking at her dagger, which now has a splash of acid on it, Rikku realizes that her blades are not being disintegrated, the blades are as sharp as they ever were, the acid hisses away as it neutralizes in the open air, producing a small amount of unpleasant smelling smoke.

"Oooh acid resistant, score one for Rikku!"

The heavy footsteps behind her suddenly snap her back to reality and to the other matter at hand. The Predator is now standing right over her and looking down at her. Rikku reflexively tries to slash at it with her right blade, but it catches her arm with it own hand, she tries to slash at it with her left arm but it catches that as well, it then squeezes her wrists with tremendous power, forcing her to drop the daggers in pain. It kicks them away from her. Rikku looks up at the predator and stops fighting, her energy depleted as if sapped away by the hunter. The Predator releases her arms and then grabs tightly onto her right shoulder with its huge left hand, preventing her from getting away. It begins to raise its right arm, wrist blades extended. Rikku closes her eyes; a small tear falls down her cheek.

"Yunie I'm sorry."

The sound of the metallic zing of the blades makes Rikku jump, when nothing happens, she slowly opens her eyes and sees that the predator has sheathed its wrist blades and has its arm relaxed at its side. The predator releases her shoulder, turns away from her and takes a few steps back, stops, and turns around to face her. It stands there for a moment, staring at her, and then reaches for one of two black tubes coming out of the side of its mask, which are in turn connected to a device on its shoulder. With a hiss of air it removes the pipe, and then it takes off the second tube with another hiss. Slowly it places both hands on its mask and carefully pulls it off.

Rikku's jaw drops and stares in amazement at the Predator who looks to be a battle hardened warrior; its skin is scarred from numerous battles it has undertaken without the aid of its mask. It has a regular pattern of small bumps running over the middle of its head, and the skin is more browned, almost tanned, compared to the rest of its body. It returns Rikku's stare through sickly yellow eyes, clicks its mandibles and sniffs a few times through its flat nose.

"You are one, ugly mother fucker." Whispers Rikku.

The Predator clicks a few more times and then roars, its mandibles flay outwards making Rikku flinch.

She looks at it with a mixture of interest and nervousness; having no idea why it hasn't killed her. The predator looks at the body of the decapitated alien, looks at the creatures head, and then looks at Rikku. He reaches down to something attached to his ankle, as he pulls off the object Rikku realizes it is some sort of knife, with an unusual design. He holds out the sheathed knife to Rikku, who raises an eyebrow.

"_What the heck is going on… is he offering me this as a present?" _Hesitantly she reaches out and takes the blade from the predator. She removes the foot long dagger and her eyes light up. The weapon, sharpened on one side and serrated on the other, is split down the middle, creating two sharp tips.

"_This thing weighs virtually nothing, I wonder what it's made of?" _the young Al Bhed ponders.

As she studies the vicious weapon, the predator walks over to her twin daggers, picks them up and gives them to her.

"Uh, thanks… I think." She clips her newly acquired dagger to her belt and takes her usual weapons from the hunter's hands. The predator in turn picks up his mask, places it back on itself and reattaches the two pipes.

"What in Spira are you? Do you even understand what I'm saying?"

He turns his head back to Rikku; he understood her and her questions.

Unbeknownst to Rikku, he is an old Predator, the elder and leader of his clan. He has participated in more than a thousand hunts through many, many decades, fought and defeated thousands of creatures all over the galaxy, some of whom even spoke the same or a similar language to what Rikku speaks. He has seen members of his clan fight and win, gain trophies, and rise in status. He has also witnessed deaths of other members, he was there when one of his own was cut down by Vasquez's Smartgun, and just a few moments ago he witnessed the killing of two more of his clan and the hands of the alien horde, where his fourth brother in arms is, he does not know.

There had come a point in his life, shortly after reaching the status of Elder Predator, when he had decided to do more than just kill worthy prey. He wanted to expand his knowledge, learn more about their ways, their language and even some of their technology. He had put his hunting days on hiatus and studied, though he is not the first Predator to have made such a decision, indeed it is quite common among the elders of his species to go on these 'quests of knowledge' they way they saw it, you can only go on so many hunts before boredom begins to set in. Naturally his motives for understanding other creatures was not just for personal knowledge, he felt that learning how to speak another's language would give his hunting prowess an edge, as he could listen to the conversations of his prey and know what they were going to do to try to stop him and the rest of his hunting brothers, for that was what being a predator was all about- retaining honour by being the best.

He looks back at Rikku, considering whether to answer her question, most predators, including himself would not humor other creatures by telling them who or what they are, but Rikku is now different in his eyes; she killed a Xenomorph in hand to hand combat with impressive skill and ease, her fighting prowess was worthy of the Predators themselves, and one such as her is worth preserving. The gift of his knife, is a symbol of his solidarity towards her, and will serve as an indication to other predators that she has earned the right to life.

But sparing a worthy fighter is one thing, telling them about themselves is another. As he knew all too well, it may be relatively easy to learn to understand the human's language, but when you have no tongue, and mandibles instead of lips, pronouncing their words coherently is a challenge.

He takes a deep throaty breath then speaks slowly and carefully.

"We, are, Yautja." He has a deep, throaty sounding voice, and very menacing.

Rikku's eyes widened slightly, having not anticipated the creature to be able to even understand her, much less reply to her.

"_I wonder if they're from another part of Spira that has not yet been discovered."_ She cogitates.

"Are you from Spira; Are you like, some sort of highly intelligent fiend?" she asks.

The predator looks back at her and a deep, twisted laugh erupts from his mask.

"I take it that's a no then?" she mutters.

The predator shakes his head and points up towards the sky.

Rikku looks up, and then realizes what the Yautja is telling her. She looks stunned; the implications of what the Yautja is pointing out to her were almost too difficult to come to terms with.

"You…You're from space? Holy…!"

He nods.

"Oh my god, you're an alien? Whoa, this is way too weird. What are you doing here on Spira, killing innocent people?"

The predator says nothing, and instead pats the various human skulls attached to its belt.

Rikku looks disgusted "You collect people's heads?"

The Predator nods.

She curls her lips "That's twisted! You go from planet to planet looking for armed individuals and you kill them and remove their heads and spines or you skin them? That's awful! Why?"

The Predator says nothing.

"Fine be that way, I don't want to know why. But I do want to know why you've decided not to kill me. I hope you haven't like, developed a sudden crush on me or something, because no offence, but you're not exactly my species."

The predator guffaws at the thought, shaking his head, he points at the carcass of the Alien.

"… Because I killed that thing? You're letting me live because I killed that thing?"

He nods in reply.

"Weird." She murmurs.

"_Okay, he has spared you because you have killed that thing, and accepted the offering of the knife… Okay I'm not going to be killed by him, that's good, I guess. Ok Rikku time to think, you need to get to the hospital, that's where everyone else should be, you hope. But those freaky creatures could be anywhere and I can't go that distance alone. Oh man, I'm going to need to ask this 'Yautja' or whatever the heck he said he was, for help. Oh boy this is gonna feel strange."_

She turns to the Predator "Um, I need to meet up with my friends… Can you come with me, uh, please? Don't worry I'll make sure they don't try to shoot you… just so long as you don't try to shoot them alright?"

She points to him and herself and then to the hospital as she speaks. The Predator looks over to the hospital for a few moments, looks back into the entrance where the aliens had taken up residence and then nods.

"Well I think we had better get…"

Her words are cut off by the predator as he points over towards one of the residential buildings. She watches, dumbfounded, as the Dropship flies towards the complex, and then begins to fly erratically. She puts her hands to her mouth as the aircraft falls below the level of the buildings and disappears. A huge explosion then erupts and a fireball roars up from the side of one of the buildings.

Without a word she and the predator jog in the direction of the explosion, a good 500 meters away from where they are.


	10. Two Lives For the Price of One

_I'm on something of a writing spree at the moment, hopefully chapter 11 will not be too long in the making. Given my present speed i'll have it up in a day or two. As for this chapter, it gets a bit gory near the end, nothing too major but hey that's just me ;-)_

**Chapter ten**

**Two lives for the price of another**

The marines reenter the hospital for the third time that day; they missed seeing Rikku and the predator heading to the wreckage of the Dropship by mere moments. They close the door behind them and Vasquez takes out a portable welder and starts to seal the door.

"Is doing that reversible? We will need it to get out of here at some point," asks Yuna thoughtfully.

"Yes it is, but for now we need to secure this building. We also need to sort out the salvaged equipment, think of a plan to get out of here, and get Baird to wake up," orders Beclem.

"Well I have an idea; if we can find some sort of radio in here we can contact Buddy and Brother on the Celsius to pick us up, the storm won't affect the Celsius and there is more than enough room on the Celsius for all of us."

"You still have that airship? Man I completely forgot about it. Well we have a radio here but we'll need to patch it into one of the terminals in this building to get it working though. But sounds like a plan to me. Now, we'd better get Baird to the med lab so Bishop can deal with him. Once we've got him there we head to that computer room, we can set up the radio in there. Man it'll be good to see that ship thing again."

Yuna sniffles slightly, "Rikku should have been joining us on that ship too you know?"

"I'm sorry Yuna, I want to get Rikku back as much as the next guy but if we went in there to retrieve her then we would probably all be captured and cocooned in there as well. Then we would all be dead. Then what would happen? These things would spread to the rest of Spira and our deaths would be pointless. You don't have to admit it but you know I'm right."

"That doesn't mean I want it this way," she mumbles

"Didn't say you had to like it, but that is the way it is. We all lost good friends today lets not make their loss worthless."

"…Okay."

Beclem turns back to Vasquez who has worked her way from the top of the door down to a few centimetres from the bottom. "Have you done yet Vasquez?"

"Bite me man," she says as she gets up and brushes herself off.

"Right, let's move."

The marines walk into one of the med-lab's analysis rooms; Elma and Biggs place Baird onto one of the beds and Bishop sets about his analysis and treatment of the unconscious man.

"Well, it seems pretty obvious that head trauma caused his loss of consciousness. He's gonna wake up mildly concussed, I'll do what I can, though really there's not a lot for me to do, we just need to let him wake up of is own accord. Hopefully he won't be out cold when your airship gets here. You guys do what you have to do, but whilst I'm here I think I will have a better look at one of those facehuggers, preferably the dead one, just to see if I can learn anything from it."

Everyone smirks and Elma slaps a hand on his shoulder "Huh! Enjoy Bish' because we aint gonna hang around here to watch, see you later."

"See you."

The Marines leave Bishop to his own devices and head for the computer room. Upon finding it they enter and mill about until Beclem snaps his fingers to get their attention.

"Alright listen up, there are two exits to this building other than the one Vasquez welded up just now, I want those doors sealed. Vasquez and Campbell I want you to seal the door in the north wing of this building. Biggs, Frosty, you take the door on the east wing of this place, those doors must be sealed. The rest of us will be in here. Oh and take a motion tracker, just in case, in fact each take a couple of grenades for your pulse rifles, you never know. He hands a couple of grenades to Campbell and Biggs. As they depart, Elma takes Yuna and Tidus to the stack of equipment that they managed to salvage from the wreckage.

"Well this is what we managed to salvage from the APC. We've got enough magazines for one person each, that's not so good. We've got two flamethrowers, one of which appears to be damaged; I don't know what's wrong with that. We've got a case of 10 M40 grenades for the pulse rifle's, that isn't so good either."

Tidus rolls his eyes, "Is there anything good to report?"

Well now that you mention it we did manage to reclaim four of our latest UA 571-C sentry guns. They are essentially an immobile smart gun. These things are great, especially in our situation. Trust me, we are gonna need these."

Beclem studies the schematics of the building on a large blue horizontal screen with Paine.

"Okay, from what we can see here, there are two underground routes that those animals can take that lead to this building. There's this maintenance tunnel here, which I think they could quite easily run through two at a time or something like that, and there is this main emergency tunnel here which is about as big as one of the main corridors in this building. They needed to have it that big so that if the reactor malfunctioned in some way and people got injured in and around the reactor, they could be quickly sent to this building. It's through these two routes that I believe allowed those things to sneak up on the colonists inside this building and take them down so quickly, no one saw them coming. Those two routes are within 20 metres of each other, which will mean we can set up sentry guns pretty quickly."

"What if the creatures are already down there waiting for us?"

"We give them as much of a kicking as we can. There is a real problem with the main access tunnel though because there is no door that can be sealed in there otherwise people needing emergency medical attention might not be able to get through, now the problem with this is that we can't weld it shut. We can however weld the door to the maintenance passage shut. Now we have been fortunate enough to be able to salvage four of our remote sentry guns, those things will fire at anything that is not recognized as being 'friend', what we're going to do is place two of the sentry guns in the maintenance passage and two in the main corridor, if those things try to get through they will be minced, until of course the guns run out of ammo, hopefully they wont. These tunnels are on the level below us so it shouldn't take long for us to get down there with these guns, set them up and weld up that maintenance hatch. But like you said, let's just hope that those things aren't already there. But first we had better wait for the others to get back."

He turns to see Yuna, Tidus and Elma standing behind him.

"Shouldn't we be calling the Celsius?" asks Yuna.

"Yeah give me a moment and I'll have that transmitter set up."

Back in the med lab, Baird begins to stir; he opens his eyes and winces at the bright lights above him. He brings his arms to his face and rubs his eyes. Slowly he sits up, arms on legs and looks around himself. He sees his two pistols on the table next to him, picks them up and gets up to leave. He notices Bishop examining the facehugger and walks over to him.

"Ah, you're awake, how are you feeling?"

"I've got one hell of a hangover, but I'll live."

"Good."

Baird takes a look at the partially dissected facehugger in front of Bishop.

"That's a nice pet you got there Bishop."

"Amazing isn't it? There aren't a lot of creatures on this planet that don't vaporize into pyreflies when they die, this is a unique specimen."

"Well you enjoy I'm going to walk around a bit."

"Don't push yourself too hard. I suggest you get to Beclem, he's taken charge of the situation for now, and he's with the others in the computer room."

"Alright," nods the lieutenant.

Baird steps outside of the med lab and watches as Frosty and Biggs jog in his direction with a motion tracker in the hands of Biggs, and Frosty holding his sniper rifle. They stop jogging as they reach him.

"Yo Hicks, good to see you in the land of the living," smiles Frosty.

"Yeah it's nice to be back, though I wish I didn't have to get back to it with a headache. Anyway what are you guys doing here, where is everyone else?"

"Beclem, Elma, Yuna, Paine and Tidus are in the computer room, and Vasquez and Campbell are heading to the North entrance to seal the door. Frosty and I are off to the East wing of the building to seal the door there."

"I see. Well I'll come along," he says as he holsters his two pistols.

The other two marines look at each other a little skeptically "Are you sure about that sir?" asks Frosty.

"Yeah I need to move around again, and having something to do should focus my mind a little."

"If you say so sir," submits Biggs.

"I do say so, let's shift it, marines."

"Yes sir," they both reply, and the three start to jog off to the east wing.

Bishop, his back to the entrance of the med lab, continues to prod and cut the facehugger. Silently, another large translucent object runs past the doorway, but does not stay to deal with Bishop.

The only other remaining predator in Macalania managed to get into the hospital complex long before the marines returned from the wreckage. He has been biding his time, waiting for a moment to strike and now that that opportunity has presented itself he is not going to let it walk by. He stops running as he reaches a corner down the hall, seeing that the marines are about 20 metres further down this new hall he proceeds to follow the group at a more stealthily pace as, from his experience a brash predator is a dead predator. That was what had happened to the first predator, he got too daring, went closer than he should have, and death by a hundred bullets was his reward. He had no intention of being brash; he was going to stick to the rules of the hunt.

The marines turn another corner and he proceeds even more carefully; he didn't want to go round that same corner and find himself staring down the barrel of one of the humans mighty weaponry just because they had stopped after that turning. He reached it and looked around cautiously. They hadn't stopped jogging and must have been nearer 30 metres away from him, one of them was welding the door shut while the other two look in his direction, Frosty for one, was looking through his sniper rifle scope. At such a far range and with that kind of weapon the predator realizes that Frosty is now a deadly opponent. The big guns needed to be brought out.

He stands at the edge of the corner, just out of view and unclips his razor disk from his side, put his fingers in the five finger holes and the oval shaped disk springs to life and extends its diameter so that it becomes a circle shape. Tiny lights on the disk light up and move from the center of the disk out to the edge and move back in, rhythmically. The Predator takes a breath and peeps around the corner. The marines hadn't moved from their positions.

Frosty now has the tracker and is pointing it in the direction of the corridor; it makes no sound apart from the pip pipping noise that it always makes, indicating that there is nothing there; the predator is out of range. Biggs finishes the welding and gets up. Suddenly they hear a strange whooshing noise and watch, to their horror as the disk shoots towards Frosty who can do nothing but scream.

Time seems to slow down as they watch the large disk go straight through the helpless marine just below his rib cage, cutting him completely in two. The disk abruptly stops in mid air and heads back in the direction that it came from, the precision of the weapon sends it straight back through the cut it has already made. Frosty's upper body seems to hang in mid air as his lower body collapses backwards spilling his entrails on the floor, the horrified looks on Baird and Biggs say it all as what was inside Frosty's chest follows his lower body downwards, dragging the rest of his body with them and lands with a sickening splat on the cold metal surface. The two standing men look at Frosty in shock. With the last of his life Frosty looks back at them and mouths 'I'm sorry guys', closes his eyes and slumps back.

Biggs glares down the hall "I'm gonna kill you, you son of a bitch! You're gonna die!" He fires his pulse rifle down the hall hitting nothing but steel.

When nothing more happens, Biggs, with Baird on his right, advances slowly towards the end of the hall, their weapons trained ahead of them where they believed the creature was hiding. They draw up level with a doorway, at least ten metres from the end of the hall and the predator springs out at them; unbeknownst to them, during the moments when Biggs and Baird were looking at Frosty, the predator had taken the opportunity to advance on them and had concealed himself in the door way, which had just enough room to hide him in. It leaps out at Biggs and rams him into Baird. The momentum of the powerful hunter picks both of them up off of their feet and they are smashed into the wall opposite, the two men give loud grunts of pain.

The predator takes a step back and punches Biggs in the stomach, which throws him a fair distance away from the skirmish; he drops his weapon as he hits the ground. Stunned, he clutches his stomach, wincing at the blow. The predator looks at Biggs; rightly believing him to be incapacitated and turns his attention to Baird who he holds by the throat. With the sound of metal sliding on metal he withdraws his wristblades and holds his arm back. Baird looks straight back at him, no longer afraid of death, for he knew that there is no point in being afraid of the inevitable. The Predator wastes no more time and stabs Baird in the chest, he makes no sound but instead glowers at the Predator, who looks back with no emotion. Slowly Baird's defiant stare fades and his body goes flaccid.

"NOOOOOO!" roars Biggs.

The predator drops Baird and begins to advance on him. Thinking quickly, Biggs makes a leap for his pulse rifle, grabs it, rolls backwards and pumps the grenade launcher on the rifle.

"Eat this you bastard son of a bitch!" he bellows at the surprised Yautja, who stops dead in his tracks.

He fires the grenade, which impacts on the predator's stomach. The subsequent explosion is impressive for such a small object and the predator is blasted backwards, or at least what is left of him, the rest of him showers the walls, the floor and Biggs with fluorescent green blood and chucks of slightly charred alien flesh.

Staggered, Biggs gets up slowly and shakes his head "That felt good."

He shambles towards the end of the corridor where lay what remains of the predator, its head, arms and a little bit of its upper body. The carcass is covered with its own blood and entrails and was now motionless. Biggs looks down at it with a grim look on his face.

"Yeah that's what happens when you kill my brothers you piece of shit!" he spits on the mask of the dead hunter then walks away from the bloodbath, despondently, pulse rifle in hand.

_Poor ol' Biggs i seem to be putting him through a lot lately, ho hum._


	11. Testing the Guns

_What's there to say? Not much really. R+R+Enjoy._

**Chapter eleven**

**Testing the guns**

Rikku and the predator walk towards the wreckage of the APC and Dropship. Fearing for the lives of her friends she begins to search for them, overturning sheets of metal and debris. The predator stands by and watches as she flits to and fro among the scrap, gradually working her way all around the bent and buckled carapace, taking care not to go too close to the more fiery fragments. She spies the open side door of the APC, with a sheet of metal leaning across it. Nervously she tips the sheet away and peeks inside. All the seats are empty, no bodies lay inside. She silently thanks lady luck and steps away from the door.

Having carefully investigated all the way round, and failing to find any trace of bodies she re joins the Predator, who is studying his wrist computer.

"They're not here; they must have been outside the vehicle when the Dropship crashed into it. They must have retreated to the hospital, we'd better get there quickly," she stops speaking as she notices that the Yautja is not paying attention to her.

"Problem?" she asks.

The predator looks at her, holds up its five fingers and lowers them one by one then stops, holding up his index finger, then points to him.

"Okay, five, four, three, two, one and you? Uh… Oh I get it, there were five of you right? And now you're the only one left? Wait that can't be right we've only killed one of your… people."

The predator shakes his head.

"Oh, uh, sorry, I guess. Don't mind me if I don't show a lot of sympathy."

The predator makes a deep purring noise and starts to walk again in the direction of the hospital and Rikku follows.

Back in the Hospital outside the entrance of the med labs, Biggs walks up to the group who are waiting for him, having heard the grenade explosion.

"Sweet mother Biggs, what the heck happened? Where's Frosty and Baird?

"They're gone man, dead. One of those invisible freaks was in this building the whole damn time! It attacked us from behind, it… got Frost first, it used this crazy disk like thing, we couldn't stop it… and it… it cut him in half man, IN HALF!

Everyone's jaws drop, Beclem rubs his hands through his hair "Sweet mother of machina, and Baird?

"It managed to ambush the two of us as we moved to where we thought it was; at the end of the corridor, but it wasn't, it had hidden itself in a door way closer to us than we thought, we didn't pay attention to it and it sprang from our sides, rammed us against a wall, punched me to one side and stabbed Hicks in the chest with those blades that come out of its arms. It was cloaked the whole time man. I managed to grab my rifle before it could turn its attention to me and fired a grenade at it. The explosion left nothing of it except its head, shoulders and arms."

"Yeah well it looks like you made a mess of it, judging by the looks of you at least, you're a mess."

"Yeah well, I punished it good. But it's not even human man, I don't know what the heck it is but it wasn't human! I gotta tell you, that thing has got some pretty weird stuff, it was wearing some kind of mask and it had these metal bands that covered its lower arms. And this thing is big man, I mean very big, the top of its head was nearly touching the ceiling when it was standing and it must have been a metre wide at its shoulders. This is shit Beclem, this is total shit! We've lost two more guys now and there are still more of those things running around, this is heavy man, I don't want to be a pessimist but I think our days of living are over," he burbles and slumps down to the floor against the wall and puts his face in his hands.

"Don't despair Biggs, it isn't over till it's over. We are still alive and we are still armed, that means we have a chance. Besides that's the second one of those things destroyed, there are only three to go and now we know a little more about what they look like for real. Let's hope that that was the only one of them in this building. But more importantly, did you manage to seal that door Biggs?"

"Yeah I just finished it when it took out Frosty."

"Good, Vasquez and Campbell have dealt with the other door and they reported no movement so let's hope we're in the clear for now. We also spoke to Brother on the radio and he's now coming over here to pick us up. He said that they were in Luca, so it will take them a while to get here, but I think we can manage. Now we need to set up these sentry guns. Vasquez and Campbell will set up the guns in the maintenance hatch and seal it shut. Elma and I will set up the two guns in the main passageway. As for the rest of you, we will meet up with you back in the computer room, this includes you Bishop. Biggs I want you to set up the comm. link to the gun turrets so that we can monitor their status. Let's move out."

Down in the maintenance tunnel, Vasquez and Campbell have finished setting up the guns and have activated their remote sensors.

Vasquez speaks into her radio "Biggs we're gonna put these things through a test run; see if you can read their status okay?"

"Roger."

Campbell throws a small box in front of the guns, which automatically turn towards the box and open fire with a five round burst from each of them, the box is almost non existent once the smoke clears and the floating debris settles.

"Got it, temperature and ammo counters are looking good. You had better get back here once you seal that door."

"Roger. Campbell, give me that welding torch."

He passes her the torch and they close the doors behind them and Vasquez gets to work.

Beclem and Elma have also set up their guns.

"Biggs you ready?" asks Elma.

"Ready."

Beclem throws a small rubbish bin in front of the guns, they too turn and fire a short burst at the bin, shredding it.

"Excellent readings are good, better get back here."

Vasquez and Campbell are already in the room as Beclem and Elma walk in.

"Okay now that those things have been hooked up we need to find a way to destroy this place. Now I have been thinking about how to accomplish this and I have an idea. You're not going to like it but we have no choice since the Dropship went down. We will need to set the Ultima reactor to self destruct. The explosion will cover the entire Macalania area and I guarantee you nothing will survive it."

Biggs puffs his cheeks "Shit man isn't there any other way?"

"No we need to be thorough in their extermination and we can't go back to Bevelle, prep a Dropship with an apocalypse bomb and destroy this place from there, those things might leave this area by then, we can't let that happen, at least at the moment we know that they are contained, to an extent."

"Well how are we going to set it to self destruct from here? The main controls are back in that building and we are not going back there," states Yuna.

"There shouldn't be a need to go there; this computer terminal can be used to hack into the main controls of the reactor and set it from here. I'll deal with that; I was briefed on the layout of their computer systems."

"How long do you recon I will take?" questions Tidus.

"Hopefully not long but I can't say. Still, I will get on that right now. As for the rest of you, I guess you just need to sit around and wait."

Beclem takes a hacking device from a table, moves to the main computer terminal and starts rewiring a few circuits and attaches the hacking device. Elma, Yuna, Paine and Tidus meanwhile walk to the status screens of the sentry guns and Elma starts to explain a few things.

"Okay, take a look at these screens here; each one corresponds to a particular sentry gun. These two here are for the maintenance tunnel sentries and these two are for the main passage sentries. Let's take this one here for example," she points to one of the screens for one of the maintenance tunnel sentries.

"You see these two bars here? This bar on the right is the ammo counter, and underneath that is a counter for the number of bullets left in the sentry. As you can see there are a hundred and ninety five rounds left in this magazine, there would have been two hundred except for the little test run we made, as they continue firing, this counter will decrease accordingly. This green bar on the left here is the temperature reading inside the gun, now at the moment it is 15 degrees inside the gun, but the more it fires the hotter it gets in there, once it reaches fifty degrees the gun stops firing until it has reduced its temperature to at least forty degrees, it does that so that the unspent rounds don't explode within the gun."

"How quickly does it heat up?" inquires Paine.

"Depends on what setting it's on. If it's on full automatic it heats up very fast. But for the sake of the ammunition we've put it on five round burst, it conserves ammo and slows the rate at which..."

Her words are cut off as the deep booming sound of gunfire rumbles from below them. Everyone except Beclem rushes to the status screens of the guns.

"Talk to me Elma!" calls out the occupied Beclem.

"It's the maintenance passage guns sir, looks like we put those things there just in time."

"Geez it's relentless down there," whispers Biggs.

"The ammo counters are going down pretty fast, gun A is already down to a hundred and fifty rounds and gun B is on a hundred and forty rounds and both are dropping!"

"How are their temperatures?"

"Thirty degrees and rising slowly for both guns."

Down in the maintenance passage the two sentry guns fire wildly, pivoting rapidly on their axels, each supported by tripod legs. Alien screeches echo from the direction the guns shoot at.

Everyone watches the status screens of the guns. Gun A is down to fifty rounds and decreases by five every second, Gun B reads sixty rounds and also drops. Both guns temperatures are holding at forty five degrees.

"Gun A is down to twenty, fifteen, ten, five, gun A is out. Gun B is down to fifteen, ten, five, Gun B is out… Both guns just went offline; the creatures must have smashed them up or something."

Suddenly there is a loud banging noise coming from below them and they could feel the vibrations of the noise through their feet.

"Geez, are you hearing that? They're trying to bash that door down, is that thing gonna hold out?"

"Its a three inch thick steel door Biggs, it was designed to withstand explosions that may occur in the maintenance passage- there are a lot of pipes in there, gas electrical all that stuff. It'll hold."

The banging stops.

"Guess they gave up," shrugs Paine

"That or they will try to find another way in, which is more likely," points out Bishop.

"Beclem I'm going to get back to the med labs and continue my research on that facehugger; I'll keep my radio open at all times. Call me if something happens."

"Bishop, take my motion tracker and a pistol, just in case," requests Vasquez, passing him the equipment.

Bishop leaves and silence descends on the room again, save for Beclem who fiddles with wires and presses buttons. Moments that feel like hours pass and the atmosphere remains apprehensive, and then the familiar sound of the guns below them sounds out once again.

"Damn it, those things don't want to give up! It looks like they want to have a go at the main emergency passage now," calls out Elma.

"Geez let's hope there are less of them than there are bullets in those guns. How are they doing?"

"Same as before, firing almost constantly, the creatures have a slight advantage in this corridor 'because it's bigger, they can send down more of them at once."

In the corridor the guns fire frantically ahead of them, their fiery eruptions accompanied by the screeches and screams of Xenomorphs.

The marines sit and watch helplessly as the ammo counters fall.

"If those guns use all their ammo we are in big trouble, get your guns ready!" orders Elma, everyone except Beclem dashes to get their rifles as Elma continues to read out the gun's activities. "Gun C is down to twenty… ten… Gun C is out. Gun D has twenty five… fifteen…" abruptly the firing stops.

Elma looks at the screen disbelievingly "It stopped. The gun stopped firing at 15, temperature is 42 degrees."

"They retreated, they stopped the attack," sighs Yuna.

"That or there aren't anymore of them," points out Paine.

"Maybe we got 'em demoralized," mutters Biggs sarcastically.

"Knock it off Biggs. I doubt we killed them all. There were over 300 people working in this area and I think it is pretty safe to assume that all of them were 'infected'. That means that those things started out with that number before we came here. We have not killed enough of them to have gotten rid of them all, I'm certain."

"What worries me more is that these things are smart enough to know when to retreat and regroup," mumbles Paine

"Well let's hope they aren't smart enough to concoct anything cunning, last thing we need is a vicious killer with a brain. Not to mention the invisible guys out there."

The radio suddenly beeps making everybody jump and Nooj's voice can be heard on the other end.

"Yuna are you there?"

Yuna jumps over to the radio.

"Yuna here, what is it Nooj?"

"I got a message from Buddy; he said he was heading over to you guys to pick you up, he said you are in big trouble. What's happened?"

Biggs interrupts Yuna from speaking "The mission's turned into Shoopuf shit, that's what's happened Sir!"

In his office in Bevelle Nooj frowns "I asked Yuna what has happened soldier and I will hear it from her, stand down."

Yuna puts a comforting hand on Biggs' shoulder and he steps back.

"The mission has gone awry Nooj. More than half the Squad has been lost. Paine, Beclem, Elma, Vasquez, Bishop, Campbell, Biggs and I are the only survivors so far. Everyone else is dead, Rikku included," the last part of her sentence she uttered with barely any volume.

Shock rarely crosses Nooj's face, but now his threshold has been breached. He says nothing, stunned that such an elite fighting force could be so badly beaten.

"Nooj, there is more to this than you think. There is something else out here in Macalania, not just invisible psychopaths. We were investigating the control center of the Ultima reactor and we found most of the resident population in there. They had been… cocooned, whatever you want to call it. We were taking a closer look at one of the unconscious workers and this animal burst out of her chest, killing her. Every one of the workers we think suffered the same fate. That's when these larger creatures ambushed us, we're pretty certain that whatever it was that came out of the workers chest was their offspring, and that was when we lost most of the troops, including Rikku."

Nooj takes off his glasses and supports his head with his hands despondently. "Sweet machina, I'm sorry Yuna. What about the others?"

"Janus and Wedge died when the Dropship came in to evacuate us, something went wrong. In mid flight it lost control and crashed into the APC."

"What about Baird? Did he die in the control center?"

"No, he and Frosty were killed by one of the invisible creatures, and Biggs killed… it."

"What do you mean 'it'?"

"These invisible things Nooj, they're not human. We don't know what they are either, but they're not human. We're into something very deep Nooj and we are getting out of here and we are going to destroy this place to make sure none of these things survive."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. What do mean you're going to destroy that place? How are you going to do that?" though in his gut Nooj had an idea of what they planned to do.

"We're setting the Ultima reactor to self destruct, you haven't seen what we've seen Nooj. We can't take any chances of letting any of these things out of here. This place must be cleansed of the dangers we have seen."

"That is absolutely out of the question Yuna; do you have any idea of what an explosion like that will do to Macalania?"

"Yes I do Nooj, and I don't care, we have our priorities fixed."

"Yuna, listen to me I am telling you, you can't do that!"

Biggs suddenly jumps back in front of Yuna "Begging your pardon sir, but fuck you!"

Nooj's expression hardens "If I hear another word from you private and you survive this I will have you transferred to massaging Le Blanc before the day is over!"

Biggs promptly steps away; he knew he didn't know the first thing about massaging, and it is common knowledge that failing to please Le Blanc has the consequence of the dreaded 'Heel'.

"Nooj, I'm sorry but this is how it is going to be, nothing is going to change our minds. Do you have anything to say?"

"… I suggest you start hoping that doing this will do what you intend it to do."

"I discarded hope a long time ago Nooj, but in its place I found something better; The Calm."

Nooj sighs "Well then, all I can say is good luck to you all. Nooj out," the radio turns off and to her surprise, everyone gives Yuna a small ripple of applause; she blushes.

Beclem continues to fiddle with a few wires and buttons, and then a small beeping noise emanates from his hacking device.

"There, done it, the self-destruct sequence has been activated and by my calculations it should blow in under two hours, which is more than enough time to get out of here on the Celsius. In the meantime we just need to get ready, get all our equipment and get ourselves armed to the teeth incase those things find a way in.

Once again the radio crackles to attention.

"This is Brother here. Are you there Yuna?"

"Yes Brother I'm here."

"We'll be there to pick you up in thirty minutes."

"Good, we'll be waiting for you, Yuna out," she switches off the radio.

"Have you told him about Rikku yet?" asks Beclem.

"No, I couldn't, not over a radio; he deserves to be told face to face, besides, he'll need comforting. He may be a bit of an idiot and they may have argued a lot but he loved Rikku, this is going to hurt himmore than it has any of us."


	12. Power Down

_When i first wrote this one it was a horrendously short chapter, like 2 ana half pages on word, i have since expanded it by writing a few extra passages and combining it with chapter 13 which was also incredibly small. I am now reasonably satisfied with this installment. I hope you will be too._

**Chapter twelve**

**Power Down**

"What are going to do now? Just wait until this Brother guy gets here?"

"Well Biggs is there anything that you think we should be doing?" replies Paine.

"I don't know man, but I hate just standing around with nothing to do when in this kind of situation. This place is flooded with things that want to kill us all and soon enough this place is going to be engulfed in a huge Ultima spell. With things like that hanging on your mind a guy needs to have distractions you know? Things to keep a person occupied, least that's the way I like it."

"Well then, let's talk," suggests Yuna.

"About what?"

"Well, I don't know, let's hear a little bit about you guys now that we have some time on our hands. I know we got off to a bad start back in Bevelle, but I want to patch up the past. So, tell me a bit about you Biggs, do you have any family waiting back home?"

"My parents and girlfriend are back in Bevelle. Man if I don't survive this they're gonna freak. If I do live through all this, I'm proposing to her," he smiles at the thought.

"Good for you, and what is the lucky lady's name?"

"Chanra."

"Nice name," she grins, "What about you Campbell?" the man had been quiet as a church mouse throughout most of the recent events and Yuna felt it was time for him to break his silence.

"Yeah I have a family back in Luca. A wife and three kids, my son, the eldest, will be turning sixteen soon. I don't want to miss his birthday."

"You won't."

He beams.

"Vasquez?"

The woman sighs and looks at the floor, "My horizon isn't as rosy as those two. Maddox was my lover ever since we got out of juvenile detention, we were eighteen back then. He was all I had. Now all I have are my instincts to wipe these brutes from the face of the planet. I don't know what I'm going to do after this."

"Oh. I'm sorry for your loss."

"No need, I've rolled with all the punches and hit back. I'll just have to roll a little more than usual this time."

"Ok. Well, I would tell you more about myself and Tidus but I guess you already know all there is know."

"Yeah, good job with Sin and Vegnagun you guys, Spira was really up the creek with those two," commends Biggs.

"Thank you, it's too bad Spira seems so unable to stay out of that creek. We seem to live in a world that has to go through crisis after crisis, and here we are in a new one. I wonder what's in store for us next."

Suddenly the lights in the building go out and a second later the emergency red lights turn on bathing them all in a red glow.

"They cut the power," whispers Paine.

"What do you mean 'they' cut the power? How can they cut the power man? They're animals!" panics Biggs.

Beclem raises his voice, "Vasquez, Biggs break out your trackers and watch those corridors, MOVE!"

He looks to Yuna, Paine and Tidus.

"Its game time… shit, Bishop!" he grabs his radio "Bishop, you copy?"

"Yeah I know I'm heading your way now, I should be there in a second," and true to his word, Bishop he marches through the door.

"Beclem I'm gonna need a weapon."

"Here, take my pistols."

"Thanks."

"No problem, Vasquez, you reading anything?"

"All clear so far."

"What about you Biggs?"

"There's nothing back here yet."

"Stay sharp and don't drift too far."

Beclem pulls Yuna over to one side and hands her a small device that resembles a watch but has no discernable face.

"This is a proximity transmitter. See this device here?" he takes another watch-like object out of his pocket that has several red numbers on its black face, "This is linked to that transmitter, with it I can see how far you are away from me with the digital readout that's on my receiver. I think you had better take it, just in case. Of all the people here you are the one we must not loose."

"Ok," she says, strapping the device to her wrist.

Outside the hospital, Rikku and the Predator walk around to the front, from the right wing of the building and stop in front of the main door. Rikku looks at its control panel by the side and presses a couple of buttons, but the door fails to open up.

"Damn it! They must have welded all the doors shut, all the others are the same, they must have decided to barricade themselves in or something, what are we gonna do?"

The predator says nothing but cocks his head to one side and then grabs Rikku's arm.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

He drags her to an abandoned truck a short distance from the building and they hide behind it.

"What the heck was that for, that really hurt you know."

She looks at him with a slight glare but that soon disappears when she hears the screeches and growls heading in their direction, and then the sound of dozens of feet pounding on the ground. Rikku and the predator peek over the top of the vehicle to see dozens of aliens running towards the hospital. The first ones to reach the building don't stop at the door; they start climbing the walls up onto the top of the building with the rest of them in hot pursuit and they stop once they are on the roof.

The aliens form a circle around one of their own, this central alien points its tail at one of the other aliens which promptly breaks off the end of its tail with its arms, the alien screeches in pain as acid spurts out of its tail. The rest of the aliens back away from it slightly as the alien touches the roof of the hospital with its shortened tail and traces a large circle into the roof. The powerful acid quickly eats through the metal surface and the alien in question falls through the opening and the others follow it.

Rikku turns to the predator, "They're inside they're gonna get to Yunie and the others! We've got to help them!"

The predator looks at the hospital then at Rikku and laughs with a very deep mischievous tone.

She looks at him quizzically, "What?"

The predator checks to see if there are any other aliens around and gets up seeing that all the aliens have now gone inside. He and Rikku move towards the front door. They stop a good 10 metres from the door and the predator holds her behind him.

"What are you gonna do?"

The predator opens up his wrist computer, presses a few buttons and his shoulder cannon springs to life and points in the direction of the main door. He holds down one of the red square buttons on his little computer and the cannon starts to make an electrical humming noise that starts off quietly and with a low pitch but slowly increases in both.

"Wait, you're not… uh oh."

The predator releases the button and a huge glowing ball of plasma fires out at the door. It impacts with a huge white flash and a loud explosion. The smoke clears and a hole can be seen in the doorway, big enough for the two of them to fit through one at a time.

"You know it would have been easier to have done that in the first place instead of walking round the building and wasting time, come on," pouts Rikku.

They dash for the door and Rikku clambers in first, followed by the predator. They see nothing ahead of them and decide to make a run for it.

"I hope we're there in time," prays the young Al Bhed.

Biggs eyes his motion tracker which suddenly starts beeping.

"Hey! I got a signal, two objects and they're closing in on me fast!"

"They can't have sent only two of them to attack us, even they must realize that they wouldn't stand a chance against all of us, are you sure you're reading it right?" questions Beclem.

"I know what I'm seeing! They're ten metres and closing."

He starts hearing footsteps coming from round a corner close to him and he levels his weapon.

"YUNIE!" calls out Rikku, to Biggs' surprise and he lowers his weapon.

"Rikku!" just as he says it Rikku runs around the corner and almost collides with the marine. The predator shortly appears behind Rikku to Biggs' horror.

"Rikku get down, there's one behind you!"

"No! Wait! Don't shoot him, he's not trying to kill me, he's spared me. Don't ask me why it's too complicated, but he is on our side, he helped me out, sort of. Look we have to group together those things are coming! They burned their way through the roof of the building; I don't know where they went from there but they're coming! Where is Yunie?"

"She's in the computer room with what's left of us," Rikku and the predator leave Biggs, who constantly keeps a close eye on it until they disappear from view.

He speaks into his radio, "Beclem! Rikku's here! She's still alive man; she's heading to your position now, oh, one more thing you should be prepared for another unexpected surprise."

"What do you mean by…? Holy shit! Rikku what in Spira's name is that thing doing here?"

"Rikku!" squeals Yuna, she runs and hugs Yuna.

"Hi guys, thought I was dead didn't you? Ha! No chance! Look I know this is not the best time but I would like you to meet a new, well, friend of mine, don't ask me why he isn't killing us, it's complicated and I will explain later but you will have to accept that he is on our side now. But more importantly those creatures are on their way here and there are quite a lot of them, they managed to burn their way through the roof!"

"Okay but first, Rikku I want you to have this," she says, strapping the proximity transmitter onto Rikku's arm.

"What is it?"

"Beclem says it's a proximity transmitter; we can use it to find out how far away from us you are."

"Oh Yunie I don't need that, really, I'm going anywhere."

"Please Rikku, I lost you once today and lost hope of finding you. I'm not going to loose you again, just wear it please, for me."

Rikku smiles and hugs Yuna.

"Okay Yunie, for you."

Biggs's voice suddenly sounds out in Beclem's radio, "Wait a second, I got a signal: Thirty metres and closing."

_I decided to leave you on a slight cliffhanger :-D_


	13. Assault

_Not much to say really except the level of swearing increases slightly, but only briefly. You'll understand why._

**Chapter thirteen**

**Assault**

"You're just reading me Biggs," replies Vasquez.

Biggs frantically turns his tracker towards the source of movement, dozens of white dots move on the screen, "No, no it aint you, uh…"

Vasquez's own motion tracker starts bleeping and she watches the white dots move on the screen, "Biggs may be right."

Biggs is shaking his head, eyes wide open, "I can't lock in man, I can't lock in… there's movement all over the place!"

"Get back in here now, lock and load people!" orders Beclem.

Biggs and Vasquez promptly return through the door and close it; Vasquez takes out her welder and starts to seal the door.

"Twenty metres and closing," informs Biggs.

They all raise their weapons; the predator presses a few buttons and his shoulder cannon comes to life. The vision mode in his mask has now changed. The background colours have converted from a blue and black background to a red and black. The marines also no longer stand out as colourfully as they used to; in fact they almost don't stand out from the red colour at all, only mild black shading makes them visible. His right index finger hovers above one of the computer's buttons, ready for action. Beclem nervously looks to his left at the predator and looks it up and down, then looks back to the door, shaking his head. Vasquez has just finished the welding of the door.

"Ten metres," calls out Biggs.

"Vasquez, Biggs gets away from the door! Remember short controlled bursts."

"Nine metres!"

"They're right on us!"

Biggs is beginning to sweat, "Eight metres… seven metres, six, wait a minute, they've stopped… what the heck is going on?"

"That can't be that's inside the room," mutters Paine.

"Well maybe you're not reading it right?"

"It's reading it right man, look!"

Yuna's eyes suddenly widen and slowly she looks up to the ceiling, the rest notice her and look up too.

"Oh geez, no way, you gotta be kidding me, no way man."

Beclem grabs a chair and stands on it with a torch and pulse rifle in hand; carefully he pushes up the ceiling panel. He turns around shining the torch in the direction of his vision, as he turns to face in the direction of the door, the light settles on a massive group of aliens who are holding onto the walls and ceiling. They suddenly start crawling, almost slithering towards him again. Beclem stumbles on his chair falls backwards, firing at the ceiling as he falls.

"Aaaaahhh! Oof! They're up there, they're in the ceiling!"

Suddenly the ceiling in front of the marines starts to collapse all over the place and aliens drop into the room.

"There they go! Get 'em!" shouts Biggs.

The group opens fire on them, the predator included. Flashes, explosions, smoke and screeches fill the air. An alien tries to run around their flanks but Yuna catches it in the corner of her eye, swings her gun in its direction and obliterates the creature.

As more and more of the creatures come flooding in the marines start to retreat to a door behind them, but in the chaos and noise they fail to notice a ceiling panel drop from behind them and an alien falls down. It swings its tail at Campbell whose chest almost explodes outwards in a hail of blood as the tail goes straight through him. He doesn't even have time to shout in pain as the alien pulls its tail out of his lifeless body. It looks to its left and screeches as the predator runs at it and smashes it against a nearby wall. As the alien tries to recover the predator gets out its razor sharp lance and swings it hard at the alien's neck, cutting clean through it. The predator dodges out the way as the acid spews out from the neck. Putting its weapon away it re activates its shoulder cannon and turns back the explosive chaos.

Biggs, saturated in his killing instinct, starts going into shooting and verbal overdrive.

"Die mother fucker! Bring it on bitch! Oh you want some of this? Fuck you!" and with each profanity he hurls, another alien falls, but still they keep coming.

In his blind rage he fails to notice an alien, who has managed to avoid getting shot at, move to the group's flank and pounces at Biggs, who doesn't have time to react as the alien wastes no time, firing its secondary jaws at Biggs's face. His body shakes violently, and then gradually stops. Rikku fires at the alien, killing it instantly.

"Fall back! Into this door, now!" orders Beclem.

He opens the door and jumps in, followed by the rest of the group, the rear being taken up by Vasquez, Elma and the Predator who are shooting furiously at the aliens. In the Predator's new vision mode all the bodies of the aliens stand out from the red background as glowing silver. Vasquez is the last to get through the door and Elma closes it. Vasquez quickly draws out her welder and starts to weld it shut from the center downwards. For a few moments a pregnant silence fills the room, save for Vasquez's welding, who is a short distance from the bottom of the door when a thumping noise sounds out from the other side of the door, two more thumps and a dent appears in the door.

"Geez these things are strong. Beclem the nearest exit door is welded shut and there is a strong possibility that those things are standing outside there waiting for us to re open it, we're going to need another way out of here," informs Vasquez.

"I have an idea, there is a large vent system here with an opening just down this hall, I remember now, and we can use it to get to the main access tunnel that leads to the reactor control station. Near to where the sentry guns are there is a lift that leads to the surface, we need to go there, now."

They run down the corridor and Beclem stops at a vent opening, it is large, big enough for a person, to walk down, so long as they bend over. Beclem shoots out the vent cover, pulls it off and gets in.

"Follow me and stay close!"

He is followed into the vent by Paine, Tidus, Yuna, Rikku and Elma. The predator begins to get in but he finds himself getting stuck. He comes back out and shakes his head at Bishop and runs in the direction of the exit.

"Vasquez lets go!" orders Bishop.

He gets into the vent and is closely followed by Vasquez who reverse-walks with her pulse rifle constantly pointing at the opening of the vent.

With one final bash the door splits open and the aliens flood in. Using their strong sense of smell they find the grating and follow the retreating marines.

Vasquez looks back to see the direction Bishop is going and looks back, only to see the aliens crawling on all four sides of the vent; she opens fire.

Yuna and Rikku are following Tidus, Paine and Beclem. They walk beneath a vertical vent shaft leading to higher levels, and Rikku is grabbed round the waist by an alien, which pulls her upwards, Rikku screams and thrashes about.

"YUNIE!"

"RIKKU!"

She watches, helpless, as the alien drags Rikku around a corner and disappears.

"NO, NOOOOO!" screams Yuna.

"Don't worry, we can find her with that proximity transmitter, but we've got to get out of here," yells Tidus and they continue down the vent.

The Predator runs around a corner, and stops dead in his tracks. The exit door has been completely broken away, and in the doorway stands one of the large praetorian guards. It hisses and bears its teeth; the predator in turn calmly gets out his lance. Roaring at the mighty creature he charges at it and the alien does the same, lowering its head. The armour plated crest shines in the red light.

Just as they are about to impact with each other the predator falls to his back and his momentum allows him to slide underneath the praetorian's head. As he goes under it, he hacks at one of the praetorian's legs, which are not armour plated, and the sharp blade slices cleanly through it at the knee. The praetorian stumbles, and roars as it hits the floor. The crippled animal tries to turn around by crawling but the corridor is not wide enough to accommodate its length. The predator puts away his spear and instead extends his wrist blades. He jumps onto the back of the praetorian and swipes at its neck, decapitating the beast. Acid blood shoots out in all directions and some splashes onto his mask, he reacts quickly and rips the mask off and watches it slowly disintegrate. He grabs the head of the praetorian and roars, his mandibles flaring. Then he proceeds to the exit and runs through the battered doorway.

Vasquez is still shooting at the relentless aliens, and then her ammunition runs out. She drops the gun and instinctively withdraws her pistol and proceeds to move quicker down the passage to catch up with the others. She passes one of the overhead vents leading upwards and catches a glimpse of an alien coming down it, she opens fire upwards and the alien tries to land on top of her, she deftly dodges to the side and the alien flops to the floor, she aims the gun right at the alien's head and fires at point blank range, the bullets easily pierce the skull of the alien, but acid splashes onto one of her legs and there is nothing she can do to stop it as it eats away at her leg.

"Ugh, oh no!" she grunts.

Bishop returns to find her trying to crawl her way towards him. He grabs hold of her and drags her along.

"Damn it Bishop! Leave me here you get out of here!" she growls.

"Not on your life! We're all going to get out of here, you got that?"

"Is that a doctor's order?" she smiles.

"Damn right it is!"

Suddenly one of the floor panels ahead of them starts to bend and buckle as one of the aliens tries to punch its way through, succeeding it sends the panel flying and starts to get out. Bishop retaliates with his pistol, sending the alien back down, but another one appears, he tries to fire but his pistol makes a clicking noise; it's empty.

"You come to save my ass and you don't have enough ammo to deal with the job? Damn it Bishop that was poor planning."

"You got anything?"

"Not really, except for this grenade."

She smiles at him deviously, and he returns it. They look to their left seeing the aliens close in, and then to their right, the other alien crawls out of the vent towards them. Vasquez presses the button on top of the grenade and holds it tight, Bishop follows suit.

"See you on the Farplane Bishop."

"Yeah you too Vaz," their faces wince slightly as the grenade gets closer to detonating.

The alien is about to bring out its secondary jaws when the grenade explodes in a large fireball.

The others stand close to the edge of the vent, which has a vertical shaft going down a couple of metres, the end of which is covered by a grating. The shock wave causes them to go off balance and Beclem falls down the shaft, back first onto the grating, the impact knocks the grating out and he falls to the floor with a thud.

"Beclem you okay?" calls out Paine.

"Yeah I'll be okay," he grunts, "Man that hurt. Okay you guys drop down one at a time, only I suggest you land on your feet."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," chuckles Paine.

Paine jumps down and is caught and steadied by Beclem as she hits the floor. She is followed up by Tidus, Yuna and then Elma.

"Right the elevator is this way, let's check the time and see how long we have," he glances at his watch, "They should be here pretty much now, let's move."

They round a nearby corner and happen on the elevator, Beclem presses a button and the lift door opens and they all get inside. The doors close and the lift moves up quickly. As they reach the top of the elevator well, the top of the well opens up and they reach the surface. The sky is still covered with clouds but it has stopped raining. They jump out of the lift and look around them. A hundred metres or so away from them is the Celsius. They don't think twice and sprint towards it with all they've got. They near the ship and its ramp lowers, Brother and Buddy stand at the top of the ramp waving them to get over to their position. They quickly reach the platform and start to walk up it when they notice that Buddy and Brother's expressions have gone from happiness to horror.

"What in Spira is that?" screeches Brother.

The group turn around to see the second Praetorian standing a short distance from them. It roars and gets ready to charge. The group waste no time and shoot it with what remains of their ammunition, but the pulse rifle's rounds are not enough to penetrate the armoured crest, they stare wide eyed and open mouthed as the praetorian hisses and begins to charge at them.

The disk seems to come out of nowhere, slicing the creature's tail clean off. The enraged Praetorian stops running and turns to the Predator who runs towards the ship. The unmasked Yautja stops running, catches and sheaths its disk, drops the praetorian head it claimed earlier and gets out its spear. The Praetorian tries to lower its head but stumbles forward, unable to use its tail to counter the weight of the crest. Realising the problem it stands as it normally would and charges at the predator anyway.

At the last second it lowers its head slightly so that it will hit the predator and use the impact to stay on its feet. The predator tries to hit it with his spear but it bounces off the alien and he takes the full force of the impact which knocks him senseless. Ever the veteran hunter, he gets back up, spear still in hand. The Praetorian charges again and the Predator places one end of the stick on the ground, and watches the Praetorian close the gap. Just as the alien is about to hit him, he brings the lower end of the spear upwards and his timing is perfect. The tip of the spear rises up underneath the Praetorian's head and pierces the Praetorians body. In one spectacular move the predator uses the praetorian's momentum to lift it up on the spear over his head and follow it through by slamming the monster on the ground behind him.

The Praetorian screeches and thrashes about, but the damage is done, the Elder walks around the alien and approaches it from the side. Standing behind the crest, he removes his spear from the Praetorians body; to the sound of its agonised howl. With a mighty swing it slices the head off of the alien, the spear allowing him to put enough distance between himself and the wound to not get splashed by the acid. He picks up his newly acquired head and runs over to the other one, picks that up, and runs over to the others. This is the first time that they all have seen him without his mask on and they look aghast at its face; the mandibles, the sharp pointy teeth and the mottled wrinkly head.

"You are one ugly mother fucker," they say in unison.

The predator gives a small shrug and walks past them with his two prises up the ramp.

Buddy and Brother look completely bewildered. The rest follow the predator in and they close the ramp. Brother then looks around the group.

"Rikku, where's Rikku?"

"Those other things captured her and we need to find her using this," she passes him the distance metre which reads 485m, "Buddy you and Brother steer this ship into the direction where the number decreases okay?"

"Okay gotcha. Brother lets fly this bird."

They run up the nearby stairs.

"I only hope we get there in time," says Yuna to herself.

"I think we will; that girl is too tough to die," reassures Beclem.

Yuna gives a small smile, suddenly the ship takes off and they stumble about.

"We'd better get to the control room and see where it is we're heading," states Yuna, steadying herself.

They all head up the stairs and into the Celsius' elevator, and Yuna selects 'Bridge'.

They arrive in the bridge to find the bow of the Celsius facing the main reactor building.

"I don't know what that building is exactly but that seems to be where Rikku is," points out Buddy.

"That's the main reactor. I wouldn't recommend going in there. Heck I think we should be getting out of here," Beclem declares.

Yuna turns on him, "I don't care Beclem we almost lost Rikku, we abandoned her for dead once, I'm not making the same mistake again. I'm going in there and I'm going to find her and if that means I die trying then that's fine by me."

"If you say so."

Tidus folds his arms, "Yeah and we're going with her," he says defiantly, holding Paine by the shoulder.

"Am I now?" asks the crimson eyed warrior, sarcastically.

"You got that right, sister!"

"Well it looks like I've been told," she grins.

"Well Gullwings this is your mission should you choose to accept it: Get in there and find Rikku!" announces Buddy.

"Mission accepted!" the three proclaim.

"Here I have a couple of extra magazines and a couple of grenades, you'll probably need them, though be careful with them, remember what kind of building you're in."

"Tidus and Paine can have those I have my guns upstairs with plenty of ammo for them."

"Hey Yuna," pips up Shinra, "I've got a little invention of mine here. It's called the Sunburst mine. The timer can be set to go off after a maximum of five minutes, and after that, it detonates and creates a swirl of scorching hot fire over a twenty metre radius. It doesn't last for very long but the effect is devastating, I would be amazed if anything survives it."

"Thanks Shinra. Gullwings lets find ourselves a Rikku!"

"Try to be quick you don't have much time!" informs Beclem, eyeing his watch.


	14. The Reactor

_I finally managed to get back to writing after my little slump. here is chapter 14 and the stakes are rising. :-D_

**Chapter fourteen**

**The Reactor**

The Celsius lands on a large square platform connected to the reactor's main building. The ship lowers its ramp and Yuna, Tidus and Paine jog off, pulse rifles in hand, and head towards the only door leading from the platform. They open the door tentatively, expecting to see something jump out in front of them, but the corridor is empty. They advance onwards, warning claxons and flashing lights fill the area. They reach a pair of large lift doors and Yuna presses the button to summon the lifts. The right lift reaches them first and the door opens, they all hop in and press the 'down' button.

"How is the metre doing?" asks Paine.

Yuna checks the little proximity metre, "It's decreasing; we're getting closer."

"Good."

They stop at the bottom of the lift shaft and the door opens up to reveal another, darker corridor. Pipes shoot out jets of steam at infrequent intervals, more of the same orangey lights flash and the claxon continues to sound out.

"Lets move a bit quicker we haven't got long," says Paine, stepping up her pace.

Yuna and Tidus follow her at a steady trot, with Yuna frequently checking the metre.

"We're getting closer."

The corridor ends and they are forced to go down several flights of stairs and walkways. They reach the bottom of the stairs, turn a corner and stop, as to their great displeasure the walls are covered in the all too familiar resin.

"I feel like we've been here before," mutters Tidus.

"No kidding," replies Paine, raising her Pulse rifle.

They advance more slowly now, ready for anything.

"Okay she's fifteen metres away from us and closing," whispers Yuna.

They continue slightly more urgently.

"Ten metres… five metres, four, three, two, one…"

She trails off as she doesn't see Rikku anywhere nearby, and yet the metre reads '0.50 metres'. She looks hesitantly at the floor and sees the transmitter. Slowly, with a shaking hand she picks it up. She collapses to her knees and starts sobbing at the realisation that she might never find her cousin in time.

Rikku, unconscious, has been stuck to the wall with the strange resin. She starts to stir and wake up. She shakes herself with the limited play that the resin is giving her and freezes. An egg, a couple of metres away from her, starts to open and her own eyes follow suit.

"Help! Someone help please! Yuna! Somebody, please!" though in her heart she knew that there was probably no one around to help her.

Yuna suddenly snaps to attention and listens intently for what she thought was the sound of Rikku's voice.

"Rikku!" she screams at the top of her voice.

She hears Rikku respond, not all too far away, "Yuna! Come quickly!"

She jumps up, almost knocking back the other two and runs blindly into the room where Rikku is trapped in; she is shortly followed by Tidus and Paine and in their haste they all fail to notice the dozens of eggs lying around the room.

The egg in front of Rikku is open and a face hugger is starting to wriggle its way out. Yuna gives it a glare and shoots it with her pistols, shredding the grotesque creature. They then jump to Rikku and start to pull the resin off of her, releasing her. She gets up a little groggily, but her face soon lights up at seeing them all and she hugs Yuna.

"Thank you for not abandoning me Yunie, I didn't want to die here."

"Its okay Rikku, we're here for you now. But we have to leave; this place is going to blow up soon enough."

As she says it an automated voice sounds out on the speakers, "Warning, reactor core will self destruct in twenty minutes."

They begin to leave when they realise their situation and look around themselves. Eggs are strewn all over the place. A creepy silence descends upon them, the only audible noises being the claxon, the hissing of steam and the sound of their own short quick breaths.

As they concentrated more on the silence they gradually became aware of a strange noise, a series of squelching noises, coming from behind them. They slowly turned around to see what looks like a fleshy tube, through the end of which appears one of the eggs.

The group begin to look from the laid egg and along the tube, which rapidly expands; it is probably a metre and a half in diameter. Then they started hearing another strange noise. To them it sounds like someone breathing through their teeth, only deeper in tone. They continue to turn until they see the source of the noise and where the tube ends. Silhouetted by a light directly behind it is an enormous black object attached to the other end of the tube, it has no discernable legs and arms; it just looks like a giant black statue. Whatever the thing is, its most striking feature is its crest, similar in shape to the praetorian's crests, except that it was a lot bigger, the top of the crest was shaped like a curvy 'W'.

The breathing noise is becoming very audible now. Slowly and gracefully its body moves, almost as if it is unfolding. Four arms and two legs very slowly start to move away from its body, the legs touch the ground and the bottom of the crest begins to rise, any discernable 'face' could not be seen because the crest was shielding it.

However, something started to creep out from underneath the bottom of the crest, they could begin to make out a chin and lower jaws, and then it came out completely. Now the whole face is visible to the friends, the enormous beast opens its mouth and gives a deep throaty hiss, bearing crystalline, razor sharp teeth as it looks at the intruders.

"Holy shit," mumbles Tidus.

"This must have been what started it all. This must be their leader, their ruler," surmises Paine.

"Their Queen," gasps Yuna.

The Queen gives out a roar and Tidus notices something move out of the corner of his eye.

"Look out there's one over here!" he points and shoots the Xenomorph and it falls from the wall in a splash of blood.

Paine hears movement from behind her and spins round to see an alien crawling towards them; she opens fire with the same result as Tidus' shots. Then the group notices some of the eggs begin to open up.

Yuna sneers, "Shoot 'em up!"

They all shoot at the eggs that are nearby and the ones that are opening, causing great distress to the Queen who tries to swipe at them with her larger pair of arms but to no avail. Once all the nearby eggs have been riddled with bullets Yuna takes out the Sunburst mine, presses a button and leaves it on the floor.

"Lets go lets get out of here now!"

They make a mad dash, retracing their steps to the way out, leaving the queen screeching furiously behind them. They round the corner and dash up the steps as fast as they can.

The Queen thrashes about, still attached to the egg tube. Gradually she tears away from her bonds to the walls and the tube. With a last jerk she frees herself completely and starts to head in the direction the group took.

The others reach the lifts, only to find that they have automatically ascended to the top of the shaft. Frustrated, Paine punches the button.

"Damn it, why is it up there? We used it to come down; we never sent it back up. Any excuse to waste more time," she hisses.

An explosion from below rocks them off their feet.

"That must have been Shinra's mine," exclaims Yuna.

"That was powerful, sometimes that boy worries me," mutters Paine.

Suddenly the Queen's screams echo somewhere down the stairs, only she sounded closer than they wanted her to be.

"Sounds like she's on her way here," huffs Tidus.

The lift is close to the bottom when they hear the signature deep hiss of the queen, and they turn to see her slowly coming round the corner. As the lift reaches the bottom and opens up, the Queen starts to move forward. Yuna, Paine and Tidus turn their guns towards her and release what ammunition they have left at the Queen, she stops moving and uses her crest to protect herself, the bullets ricochet off of her. Rikku hammers the button inside the lift to take them up and the others jump in as the queen gets close to them, At the last second the door of the lift closes just in time and the lift goes up.

Tidus breathes a sigh of relief, "Whoa that was too close. She is huge, I mean really huge."

"You don't need to tell us about it," mutters Paine.

Rikku hugs Paine and Tidus with all her strength, "Thanks you guys."

The usually inert Paine looks at Rikku, smiles and hugs her back, "It's alright; if you died then there wouldn't be anyone to be my opposite, no one to balance out the team."

"Thanks," she says and turns to Yuna, "and thank you too Yuna, it was you who persuaded them to go to, I can tell," she throws her arms around her cousin as well.

"It's alright Rikku, I wasn't going to loose you a second time, no way."

The lift reaches the top of the stairs, amongst the little explosions.

"This place is falling apart!" comments Paine.

The door of the lift opens up and they run out and stop, the Celsius is gone.

"No! Damn you Brother! How could you leave us here to die like this!" screams Rikku.

Their anger and fear is interrupted by the noise of the second lift. They rush to the metal mesh preventing them from falling down the lift and watch it slowly rise to their level. They back away from the lift shaft, knowing in their gut exactly what is inside it, and wait for the impending abomination to emerge.

They watch as the top of the lift appears, and then the rest of it. The doors open to darkness; a couple of flashes reveal the Queen crouching in the lift. The group looks on in horror as she slowly gets out of the lift and hisses at them.

"Looks like this is it then guys,"

"Not if I can help it!" says Rikku, and unclips her daggers from her belt and stands ready for a fight.

"Rikku don't fight it, the acid blood will…"

"These daggers are resistant to their acid; I killed one of those things with these earlier."

"Rikku don't," implores Yuna.

They suddenly hear the airship and they turn around to see it moving in closer with the ramp open. They look the airship and then back at the Queen.

"Well now that we have a chance, let's get out of here!" shouts Rikku.

They dash for the ramp, which floats a metre off from the edge of the platform and jump, they all land just inside of the ramp which instantly starts rising, they watch as the queen slowly slips from view as the ramp closes. They run up to the lift and use it to get up to the bridge. As they travel up the lift an explosion outside of the ship rocks the entire machine sideways.

"This place is crumbling all around us! What are you doing Brother? Get us out of here!" yells Rikku, even though Brother would not be able to hear even her yelling.

The Celsius adjusts itself away from the platform and accelerates out of the building and away from the reactor.

Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Tidus enter the bridge.

"You guys sure took your sweet time," speaks Buddy.

"Nice to see you too Buddy," says Rikku sarcastically.

Brother jumps up from his seat and spins around, "Rikku you're alive!" he gets out of his driving seat and picks up his little sister and hugs her, "I don't know what I would have done if you had died in there."

"Good to see you as well bro."

He puts Rikku down and looks at the other three.

"I don't know what to say, besides thank you."

"Anytime," they all say.

"Hey guys I hate to break up the happy reunion and all but I don't know if we're going to get out of range of the blast. Beclem how long do we have?"

Beclem is visibly sweating as he speaks "Uh thirty seconds!"

Brother jumps back into his seat, flips a few buttons and grabs holds of the handles with visible force.

"I suggest you sit down and brace yourself; it's time to put the booster Gippal installed to the test."

They all obey, even though there are not enough seats. Beclem sits down and the predator sits next to him. He eyes the predator and nods his head once, the predator returns the nod.

Brother then flips another switch and the Celsius jerks forward as her rear engines go into accelerative overdrive.

"Yehaw!" scream the two pilots.

Beclem strains to look at his watch, examining the count down timer he set earlier; it read '5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.'

The Celsius speeds through the sky away from Macalania; suddenly a dark circle consumes Macalania City and rapidly expands outwards. Seconds later brilliant white flashes erupt from the site. The familiar and extraordinarily loud noise of a gargantuan Ultima spell charging up spreads over the area, with the Celsius still in it. Beams of light shoot out from the centre of the doomed city. Then the colossal explosions, typical of Ultima, begin to thunder outwards, heralded by hundreds of circular waves of light, heading in the direction of the Celsius with great speed decreasing the gap between the spell and the Celsius.

"Uh, it's gaining on us!" shouts Buddy.

The room begins to glow green and purple from the light outside and the bridge shakes violently as the concussion waves reach the ship.

"Come on baby hold together!" fumes Brother.

The Celsius is slowly engulfed in the outer, dark, sphere of Ultima, not even the spell's powerful light can illuminate the Celsius's location. Moments pass as the light continues to expand, but is now visibly slowing down. The Celsius suddenly bursts out from the obscurity and shoots away from the destruction.

"We did it, we're gonna make it! We rule! Hahaha! I love this machine," shouts Buddy patting the controls of the airship.

The speed of the Celsius decreases and everyone is able to get up to their feet again.

"Woo Hoo! Not bad!" shrills Rikku, turning to the others, "Let's do that again."

"Later Rikku, much later," says Paine dryly.

For a while no one says anything as it has dawned on them that, despite their survival, they have lost so many and not just their comrades, the marines. The only noise apart from the Celsius's engines was the occasional click or growl from the Yautja.

"All those people, gone," mumbles Yuna, "It seems so futile, they died in order to create those creatures and now we have just destroyed them. I didn't want them to escape as much as you guys, but I can't help but feel that the people's deaths have been completely pointless."

Tidus puts a comforting hand on Yuna's shoulder, "Death has a way of making you feel that way. But we did what we had to do," She holds his hand as he wraps his arms around her.

Everyone continues the silence.

After ten minutes of silent reflection, Brother speaks.

"Hmmm that's odd. The front left engine seems to be slowly loosing power."

"Maybe the explosion got to it," suggests Buddy.

"No, I'm thinking that booster we just used did it. The Celsius has never used it before. Damn, what a ride that was. Remind me to thank Gippal later on."

"Hey look over there, it's Bevelle," Buddy points to the distant and ever magnificent city.

"Never thought I would be so happy to see that city," comments Beclem.

"I have no idea how we are going to explain all of this to Nooj, Baralai and Gippal," speaks Elma.

"Yeah there's so much to tell them."

"Well let's see what there is to tell," states Paine, pragmatically, "We went searching for survivors, got ambushed on two occasions by hundreds of monsters that were not fiends, but something completely different, and lost most of our soldiers as a consequence. Oh and to top that off, the murderers we set out to kill in the first place, are in fact aliens from outer space..." she was about to continue when the Predator interrupts her.

"Yautja," he said in his deep growling voice.

Everyone turns to it, including the pilots.

"Oh yeah I forgot to mention," pipes up Rikku "he seems to have a vague understanding of our language."

"We are Yautja."

"I, see. I think," declares Paine.

"This is gonna be a great story for the grandkids huh guys? Oh whilst we're talking. What was that thing I saw coming out of that second lift, it was enormous!"

"That was their leader. The Queen we supposed. She was laying eggs, hundreds of them, until we arrived."

"I hope you whooped ass," says Brother.

"I think we did. Too bad we ran out of ammo to whoop her arse with," replies Tidus

"I had my daggers, I recon I could have taken her!" pouts Rikku.

"Acid resistant weapons or not I very much doubt that," mutters Paine.

The predator points at Rikku, "Strong and honourable warrior."

He walks up the steps that leads to the entrance of the bridge and picks up one of the Praetorian heads. He walks up to Rikku and holds it out for her, she takes it.

"Thanks," she turns to the others, "Do any of you guys know where this one came from?"

"Well he was holding onto one of them after he managed to find us at the Celsius, and at that point in time we were about to get attacked by the owner of that second head. It looked like a smaller version of that Queen and I gotta tell you he wiped the floor with it, it was quite impressive," declares Tidus.

Rikku looks at the Predator, "Thanks for saving them," he clicks a few times and bows his head.

They all turn to the window of the Celsius and watch as Buddy and Brother manoeuvre it around one of the buildings. One of the hangar doors opens and they carefully move in. The pilots settle the Celsius on the ground and shut off her engines. They begin to head for the exit when a concerned expression crosses Rikku's face and she looks at the Predator.

"Hang on guys. What about him? He can't just waltz out there and expect to receive the same attention as the rest of us. He's killed a fair few people and Gippal would love to have a chance to take a shot at him."

"Well how about he stays here for now and we don't tell anyone he's here? We can sort out Nooj Baralai and Gippal, get them out of the way then come back here and deal with him from there."

"Sounds okay, I guess," she turns to the predator, "We need you to stay here for a while, just until we get back okay?"

He understood what both Rikku and Yuna said and so he nods in agreement.

"Alright, let's go."

_Sorry Ikon, you're thirst for Rikku's blood will have to wait._


	15. An uninvited guest

_I've decided to make this the penultimate chapter, no reason why, just decided it would be. Hope you enjoy the chaos within this one R+R please_

**Chapter fifteen**

**An uninvited guest**

The group stroll down the open ramp of the Celsius with Yuna and Rikku taking the lead and Tidus and Beclem bringing up the rear. They reach the bottom of the ramp, stop, and look around. To their surprise the hangar is deserted.

"Huh! Well don't everybody flock to see us at once," sulks Rikku.

Behind Tidus and Beclem, quiet as a church mouse, a long thick black tail descends behind them and then backs up close to the Celsius's hull and freezes. A moment of silence goes by as the others just stand there, unaware of the danger. Fast as a whip, the tail fires forward, sharp end first.

Beclem's chest erupts outwards and he gives a short sharp scream, everyone wheels around in shock, his voice trails off as blood streams out of his mouth. He is raised upwards to the horror of the rest of the group, whose eyes follow him upwards, and fall on the owner of the tail. She hisses at the fast dying Beclem and her huge second jaws shoot out, practically destroying Beclem's entire head. She holds onto his body and pulls out her tail and throws his corpse to one side. Dropping to the floor, she stands up to her full height and roars at those who destroyed her home and her children.

Rikku, unafraid, once again draws out her daggers and looks back at the others.

"We don't have a choice anymore guys! I'm going fight this thing, whether you like it or not! Besides it's about time I got even with this bitch. Go, get out of here!"

The rest of the group starts to run towards the door; they couldn't stay and fight, they were unarmed and wouldn't stand a chance. Rikku looks back at the queen, who is looking right at her.

"Rikku I'm gonna get reinforcements, stay alive you hear me!" calls out Elma.

"I hear you! Come on then you bitch, you want some of this? I'm ready for you!"

The Queen roars and runs at Rikku who dives to the side, narrowly avoiding her opponent's large, clawed feet. She gets up and the Queen spins around ready to charge again.

The door to the hangar suddenly opens up and a crowd of 6 marines, Elma included, run out, brandishing pulse rifles. The Queen turns to face them and lowers her head. She charges at the marines who open fire. To their horror the bullets ricochet off the crest harmlessly, they keep firing but watch, stunned, as she doesn't even slow down.

They start to retreat to the door behind them, but they're too late, the monstrosity manages to ram into Elma and another marine and she crushes them both between herself and the metal wall. She backs up and their lifeless bodies flop to the floor. She swings her tail at one of the marines running through the door, spears him, and brings him back out as the door is closed by the other three who managed to retreat in time. She drops the marine onto the floor and immediately turns her attention back to Rikku, but stops, bears her pointed teeth and hisses. Rikku, and now the Predator are standing there, daggers and spear in hand.

The Queen looks on at them, studying this new development, she is not as stupid as her warrior children. Indeed, she has an intelligence far superior to any fiend on Spira. Combine this with her unquenchable desire for survival and reproduction, and there really is very little to match how deadly she really is. But she could sense that these creatures standing before her; a human and a Yautja, possessed intelligence even greater than her own. This was going to be the final test for all of them; she advances on them slowly, watching them like a hawk for any trickery.

Rikku and the Predator look at each other, and then start to move around the Queen in opposite directions in a pincer movement. Once they stand opposite each other, with the irritated Queen in the middle, the Predator roars and Rikku screams and they both charge at the abomination. The Queen quickly looks in both of their directions and turns her attention to the Predator, at the same time swinging her tail at the approaching Rikku, who sees the tail coming just in time and commando rolls forward, the tail whooshes over her, missing by mere inches, she gets back up and jumps as the tail swings back, lower down this time. Due to the constant swishing of the tail Rikku can't close the gap, finding it tricky enough to dodge and duck the whip like tail, let alone advance on her quarry.

Whilst Rikku dodges and ducks, the Yautja attacks her majesty from the front, utilising a combination of slashes to her face and dodging the swipes of her huge clawed hands and the occasional shot of her secondary jaws. Unfortunately most of his own swipes with the spear either miss the queen or impact on her crest producing nothing but sparks.

He goes to slash her head but she catches the right side of the spear in her arm and then grabs the other end with her other arm. The two suddenly find themselves partaking in a wrestling match, each trying to wrench away the spear from each others grasp. The Queen pulls the Predator closer to her face and he watches as the Queen opens her mouth. The piston-like jaws fly out at his face, and he feints to his left side and watches, eyes wide in surprise, as the jaws fly past in front of his eyes and retreat back into the maw they came from.

In a burst of adrenaline he wrenches and tears his spear away from the clutches of the Queen and jambs the handle of the spear into the Queens open mouth, preventing her from biting and firing those jaws, however she starts slashing at him with her claws, cutting into his tough leathery skin. He roars in pain as she repeatedly lacerates him. Unable to bear it he takes out the spear and jumps backwards to put some space between himself and her, his wounds stung and burnt and bled, but were not lethal.

She stops swinging her tail and runs at him; he crouches and at the last second propels himself into the air, far higher than any human could reach. The Queen reaches the point where he once stood and stops. In mid air he grabs onto the top of the Queens crest and holds on, but drops his spear in doing so. He instantly extends his wristblades, but keeps holding on as she writhes about trying to get this infernal creature off her head. For the Yautja it's like riding a bucking bronco, and he holds on for the sake of his own skin.

Rikku, now having been given the opportunity to collect herself runs to the side of the thrashing and bucking Queen, daggers at the ready and cuts off one of her smaller arms at the shoulder and quickly retreats as the acid spills onto the floor, rapidly melting it away. The livid animal turns to Rikku in agony and charges at her. Once again Rikku dives out of the way, but not so much this time, as the Queen's head passes by she could feel her warm breath.

She watches, surprised as the powerful right leg raises to step on her, she rolls right underneath the Queen, the leg missing her by a few millimetres. Rikku screams in rage and slashes at the Queen's tough ankle, cutting into it but not completely through it. She quickly gets up and jumps to one side as the queen howls, as her damaged ankle is no longer able to take her weight and snaps.

She collapses to the floor, knocking the Yautja along with her, who thumps to the floor.

For a moment none of the combatants move from the exertions of battle. The only audible noise is the Queen's heavy breathing and the occasional purring noise from the Predator. Rikku is the first to pull herself up to her feet. Daggers in hand she wipes the sweat from her forehead, the Yautja follows suit, blearily getting to his feet, shaking his head slowly. Rikku steps backwards to join him, constantly looking at the Queen, who looks straight back at her.

"That," she puffs, "Was intense. What now, how shall we kill her?"

He shrugs and walks over to his spear.

"Okay," murmurs Rikku, "Let's do it the old fashioned way."

She advances on the Queen, who watches her intently, teeth beard. As Rikku approaches her thick neck, the Queen suddenly springs to life. Pushing herself up with her three remaining arms, she head butts Rikku, sending the surprised Al Bhed flying. Unable to support herself on her hind legs she walks on all fours with a slight limp. She turns her attentions to the Elder who grasps his spear.

She runs at him with all her strength, preparing to ram him. He crouches and begins to jump into the air, but at the last second the queen stops, and watches the predator fly into the air. He looks straight back at her, knowing all too late that she wanted meant trick him and has succeeded. The pointed tail shoots through the air and pierces his right calf, making his mandibles flare in anguish, and he drops his spear.

He crashes to the floor, the tail still sunk in his muscular leg, preventing him from moving. The Queen looks at her prey and opens her mouth with a hiss, ready for the final strike. The red dagger spins through the air with unparalleled accuracy, and buries itself deep in the beast's throat. She recoils wildly, withdrawing her tail from the crippled Yautja and staggers around, her deadly blood spurting in all directions.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance, bitch," snarls Rikku, advancing on the struggling alien, her flailing slowing down as the wound begins to take its toll. Then Rikku flings her other dagger at the monster, which embeds itself into her thigh. Completely crippled now, she collapses to the floor, hissing and fuming.

The door of the hangar opens and Yuna, Paine Tidus, Nooj, Gippal and Baralai run in, they stare at the scene before them. The Queen's tail waves around slowly as she whines. The predator crawls to his spear, grabs it and slides it along the floor to Rikku, who picks it up.

"Finish her," he growls.

Rikku approaches the Queen who starts to thrash about in protest. Rikku walks around the side of the Queen, who is unable to follow her movements. She holds one end of the spear, and looks at the back of the queen's head.

"We lost so much because of you; this is for them!"

She screams and swings the spear round over her head, and brings it down onto the Queen's neck, the razor-sharp blade cuts clean through her and Rikku dives to the side as the acid sprays out of both ends and starts to melt away at the floor. The hulking animal stops thrashing and lays still, her head falling to one side. Silence suddenly envelops the room.

The Predator struggles to his feet and hobbles towards the Queen's head, picking it up with both hands he offers it to Rikku who takes it, but is unable to hold it up. She bows her head to her comrade who returns the gesture. Moving next to the Predator, she puts his arm over her shoulder to help him support himself and, with the head in her other hand, they trudge to the astonished group.

As they draw near, Tidus begins clapping, slowly at first and the rest start to follow suit, gradually speeding up the clapping the closer the pair get to them. As they stand toe to toe with the group they grab Rikku and lift her, leaving the poor predator to use the head as a support, they throw her up into the air and catch her repeatedly.

"Whoa guys, cool it, I don't want to land heavily on the floor or anything."

Carefully they set her down on the floor.

"Besides I had help."

She points to the Predator who stands alone a few metres away, he was quite a site, fluorescent green blood dripping down his leg and body, but he bowed graciously.

It's the first time that Nooj, Gippal and Baralai have seen the Predator close up, and they stare wide eyed, their mouths parted at the site of this incredibly ugly alien standing in front of them.

They speak unanimously, "You are one, ugly…"

"Yes, yes, yes we have long established that fact," interrupts Rikku.

He roars and clicks a few times. He drops the head in his right hand and presses a button on his wrist computer, which opens up; he presses a couple more buttons and the others watch in amazement as, to the left of the Celsius in the hangar, a small predator ship uncloaks, as always the air shimmers around it, before becoming still again.

"That was there the whole time and you guys didn't even notice?" asks Rikku.

"We never detected anything entering the hangar apart from the Celsius." Replies Nooj flabbergasted.

"You gotta have some crazy technology to get past our radar system," points out Gippal.

They watch a ramp descend from the side of the ship's hull and touch the floor. A lone predator walks down the ramp and towards the group. His unmasked face bears similar characteristics to the other Predator; he is another elder, who decided to sit out this hunt and take care of the ship. Unlike the hunter standing with the group he is wearing a long black cape with intricate red markings on both sides of the material and two circular silver clips attaching the cape to his shoulders and in his arms he holds some sort of folded up cloth. He reaches the other Predator and they bow heads to each other and exchange clicks and chirps, their mandibles moving as they speak.

The new arrival holds the cloth by two corners and lets the rest fall to the ground; it is another black cape, with the same red markings, only this one has golden circular clips to attach to shoulders. The cape-less Predator turns his back to the newer Predator who clips the cape to his bare shoulders; any pain that he felt was not displayed, as this is not the first time such a cape has been put on him. The other predator then stands next to his friend and looks at Rikku who is just barely propping up the Queen's head. The predator, having seen what she has just accomplished, bows his head to her. The injured Predator turns to his comrade and points to the open ramp of the Celsius, clicks and few times and the other predator walks to the ship. He disappears up the ramp momentarily and then returns, a Praetorian head in each hand, and then he turns towards his own ship.

The injured Predator also turns to leave, much to Rikku's bemusement, "Wait! Don't you need this?" she asks holding out the Yautja's spear.

He in turn shakes his head, "keep it," he rumbles, then turns back to the ship.

Rikku looks a little surprised at his willingness to just leave with no goodbyes.

"Wait. What's your name?" she asks.

He turns back to her again, thinking about her question.

"Daschande," he answers finally, "Goodbye Rikku," and with that, he turns back to his ship to follow his comrade, cape swaying in the slight breeze from the open hangar, this time without being interrupted.

Rikku gives a small wave, but he does not look back.

The ramp promptly closes after him and after a few moments the ship starts to make a slight rumbling noise and the sound of the ship powering up can be heard. It levitates off of the ground and reverses out of the hangar, turns away from the building and its engines fire, sending it shooting off into the sky, and into the unknown.

"Goodbye Daschande," mumbles Rikku, saddened at seeing the back of her new found friend.

The others start to look to each other, then to the dead body of the Queen.

"Lets get out of here everyone; we have a lot of things we need to sort out with regards to everything that has happened over the last 24 hours. Let's get inside. Uh Rikku I suggest you leave that head there and you can pick it up when you leave. Who knows how we're going to dispose of that body there," commands Nooj, and they all turn to the exit door and leave.

_I promise you Ikon i take no pleasure in torturing you like this, i just don't really want to kill her. Sorry._


	16. Reflections

_Here it is, the final chapter, it's been a long road, but i think it's been worth it. This is the shortest chapter of the lot as you can see, though really it's more like an epilogue. One thing that i should mention: This is really divided into two halves, the first half has been written in past tense, and the second in the present, as usual. I hope this ending will be enjyed in all it's shortness and hope you like it. Enjoy._

**Chapter sixteen**

**Reflections**

Hours of talking to Nooj, Gippal and Baralai about everything that had happened during the friend's time at Macalania had passed by, every aspect; every nuance and every detail was discussed.

Truth be told, Nooj, Gippal and Baralai were not overjoyed at the state Macalania was now in; an uninhabitable wasteland where not even fiends could survive. But they accepted that in the end the marine's course of action was necessary, and ultimately they were thankful that the crisis had been averted.

As a final act of thanks to those who lost their lives in Macalania the three men drew out plans to create a monument in Bevelle commemorating the dead. To those who had died in the hangar; Beclem, Elma and the two marines, Yuna was asked to send them as soon as possible; feeling it would be inappropriate for their ascension to the Farplane to be delayed any further. She accepted the task willingly, but not without a shed tear or two.

The Pyreflies had floated and danced, whilst those who watched reflected. They knew they had defeated the enemy, but it was a salvation, not a victory. They stood there in silence, long after Yuna had finished the ritual and long after the sun had set.

It was Yuna who made the final decision for everyone to depart from the three leaders of Spira. In silence they had parted their ways, and the only thing to break that silence had been the powering up of the Celsius's engines.

Inside the bridge of the Celsius nobody says a word; they just sit in silent thought.

Buddy clicks a few buttons in front of him and looks to the others, "Hey," he says softly, "I'm taking us to Besaid, ok? I figure Wakka and Lulu will want to know what happened out there."

"That's fine, thanks Buddy," responds Yuna.

Tidus stretches his arms out and yawns.

"I'm so tired. I think I'll hit the sack," he murmurs, getting to his feet.

"I'll join you," says Yuna, holding out her hand to him who takes it and hauls her to her feet.

"What about you two?" she asks Rikku and Paine.

"I'm in," speaks Rikku.

Paine says nothing but gets up to her feet anyway and dusts off her backside.

As they climb up the small flight of stairs Brother calls out to them, "See you tomorrow guys."

"Will do," they all respond. Then they trudge to the lift and activate it.

The Celsius speeds through the starry sky, its occupants finally able to sleep in peace and safety, then Shinra speaks up.

"Did you guys hear that?"

"Hear what?" asks Brother.

"I don't know," he mutters, "it sounded like a weird scuttling noise…"

_And there it was done._

_I'd like to just say a few words in closing.Thank youeveryone who read and reviewed this story, my very first completed fic, you've been most helpful. But my sincerest thanks go to Ikon, who has been with me on this projectevery step of the way and given me advice and little nudges. You are a star. Thank you._


End file.
